


Survival Planet

by Chromite



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Adventure, Alien Creatures, Cooking, Post-Episode s05e29-32 Change Your Mind, Survival Test, Swords, alien world, making shelter, mixing ingrediants, vague mentions of the Crystal Gems and Connie's Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2020-09-02 10:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 53,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20274151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromite/pseuds/Chromite
Summary: Connie sets off on an adventure, to keep her skills sharp and to serve as a test of all her survival skills.





	1. The start of the survival test

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the start of a new chaptered story. I hope you guys enjoy the ride.

>It had been a year since Steven and the Crystal Gems had changed White Diamond's mind and the changes in gem society had begin. A full year of Connie being without Steven, having to rely on her own abilities during gem missions, missions that were becoming less and less frequent. Connie found herself longing for an adventure and a test of her survival skills.  
>With the goal of truly testing herself in mind, she got her parents together with the Crystal gems and told them what she had in mind. An adventure on an alien world, something to keep her fighting skills sharp and test her survival abilities at the same time. Her parents were weary of the suggestion at first, but after a half hour of back and forward conversation listing points for and against the idea, it was decided that Connie would be allowed to have the adventure and test she desired.  
>The conditions for the adventure was set. The most important thing was that Connie could breath the atmosphere without aid, which Connie agreed to without hesitation. The second point was that the adventure would have a specific time limit, two weeks at the longest. Connie had to fight for that extended time limit, her parents not wanting her in danger for more than three days in a row, but eventually giving in due to a few other aspects of the mission that had been agreed upon.  
>The third point covered one of these conditions, Connie had to carry a communicator on her at all times, equipped with a device that would monitor her vitals as long as it was in range, and keep track of her position on the planet. If Connie's vitals started dropping below safe points, if the communicator moved too far away from her, or if she stayed in the same spot for longer than eight hours, the mission would be ended early. The communicator served as a method for Connie to end it early herself, if she felt like the planet was becoming too much for her to handle.  
>The fourth point covered were her starting supplies. Connie had wanted to go in with nothing but her sword, but her parents had argued for her carrying a few supplies with her. In the end, she agreed to take a day's worth of food with her and a vial of healing essence to be used in extreme cases. The vial of essence was rigged to send a signal out if it was opened, another way for the mission to come to an end early.  
>The last point agreed upon was a victory condition. A set of limb enhancers custom built by Pearl and Peridot would be hidden on the planet for Connie to find. The limb enhancers themselves were set up with their own tracker, their location marked on a map of the planet and a sensor within designed to send a signal when Connie picked them up and put them on.  
>With the guidelines set, Pearl and Connie loaded up into a custom made Roaming Eye ship, nicknamed the Crystal Eye, twice the size of a normal Roaming Eye, colored a vibrant pink with a yellow star pattern serving as its scanner, and designed to house and admit the larger fusions like Fluorite, Alexandrite, and any other fusions of four or more gems with ease.  
>The Crystal Eye settled into orbit around the selected planet. The area of land they were approaching was covered in a thick grove of trees, the leaves colored a bright pink with thin purple stripes, the trunks of the trees themselves were a bright red. Pearl smiled widely as she brought the ship down for a landing. "Now Connie, you know the guidelines set forward, you know your objective. The limb enhancers were hidden on this piece of land, you won't have to cross any deep pools of liquid to get to them. The main liquid on the planet is safe for humans to drink, and many species of plants and animals present can be consumed safely. You should have no trouble feeding yourself while you're here. Do you have any questions?"  
>Connie stood wearing her favorite brown jacket with a small blue circle with a purple ring around it on each shoulder over a dull grey shirt underneath the jacket, and her legs clad in blue jeans. On her back was a small brown bag, with the food and healing essence she agreed to take with her, hanging over her sword and scabbard. "No ma'am, I'm all set!" Connie smiled as she unsheathed the sword Bismuth had given her a year ago, the pink blade shining in the light as she drew it, the white star in the yellow finned hand guards displaying her affiliation with the Crystal Gems. "Just ope the door and I'll get started."  
>"Well you sure are confident! Alright Connie, go out there and complete your mission! I know you'll do great, you are my student after all. I'll see you when you finish!" Pearl pressed a portion of a panel, causing the entrance of the Crystal Eye to lower down and touch the orange soil of the planet.  
>Connie gave Pearl one more nod before she stepped out onto the surface of the alien world. Behind her, the door to the Crystal Eye closed. The ship hummed as it took off from the surface, flying back up through the gap it had created in the treetops and out into space, where Pearl would put the ship into orbit and wait for any signals to come to her from the planet below.  
>Connie took a deep breath of the fresh air on the alien planet then let out a sigh, eyeing the pile of red tree limbs with the purple striped pink leaves attached to them, a byproduct of the ship landing through the treetops onto the surface proper. She briefly considered using the already fallen limbs, shaking her head a minute later as she started making her way through the jungle, thinking to herself "No, I can't use those, this is about me surviving on my own. Using the byproducts of the ship landing would be cheating."  
>As she walked through the dense jungle, Connie started to swing her sword around, cutting through the lowest hanging branches and tucking them away under her left arm as she walked. She knew she'd need wood to start a fire to cook whatever food she managed to gather up.  
>When she had a few dozen thin branches under her arms, Connie let out a groan of frustration and muttered under her breath. "How could you be so stupid, you need something to carry these in, something that won't interfere with your emergency supplies." Connie looked around as she started to walk slower, looking for something that could be fastened into a makeshift bag larger than the small brown bag she had on her back.  
>After fifteen minutes of wandering around with tree limbs tucked under her left arm, she spotted a large green flower with yellow stripes. Around the base of the flower were huge green leaves. With a smile, Connie set the red limbs down on the ground and rushed over to the giant plant.  
>Using her sword, she removed five of the giant leaves from around the large flower. She drug them along the ground and set them next to her pile of wood.  
>Her brows furrowed as she considered what she could do to weave the leaves together. She didn't have any rope, and she hadn't seen anything long enough to use as rope. After five minutes of looking around and thinking, she sighed as a solution came to her.  
>"I jut got it back to the length I like it too." Connie whispered out as she stretched out a section of her own hair out and took her sword in her hands. She flinched a little as she cut off a large portion of her long hair, then started weaving groups of strands together to form short sections of rope.  
>Combining the hair rope with the leftover stems of the leaves, Connie was able to weave four of the five leaves together into a sizeable holding bag that could hold the wood she gathered and would hang comfortably over her back. She shifted the small brown bag aside as she hung the makeshift wood carrier on her bag, then picked up what she had already cut down and threw it into the pouch.  
>Connie looked at the remaining leaf lying on the ground. She hesitated for a moment before she tore a piece off of it and gave it a tentative lick. She shuddered as her tongue ran over the surface of the leaf, her mouth filled with an extreme sour flavor. "Edible, but very strong. Needs something to offset it." she thought to herself as she stuffed the rest of the large leaf in with the wood she had gathered.  
>Connie continued walking through the jungle, cutting down low hanging branches and placing them in the bag, a growing sense of worry filling her as the environment started growing darker around her. She looked around as she started moving through the trees faster, no longer cutting down limbs as she went. She needed to find some place to set up shelter, she knew she didn't want to be out in the open during her first night on an alien world.  
>After another fifteen minutes of running, she saw it. A large patch of ground rising up in a slight clearing in the forest, forming a sixteen foot tall opening she could position herself into. She smiled as she saw bright purple vines hanging down from the top of the opening. Connie worked quickly to cut the vines down from the top of the raised ground, gather them all up from the bottom, and then using them to weave together the larger branches she had gathered into a makeshift door.  
>She slid the door into place over the opening and let out a sigh of relief. "This should be enough to get by tonight."  
>Connie's stomach rumbled, prompting a new thought. "I wonder how those purple striped pink leaves taste?" she whispered to herself as she plucked a few leaves off the remaining wood and sticking one in her mouth. Once more, a strong flavor flooded her mouth, this time it was overwhelmingly sweet. "Ergh, everything has a strong flavor here so far, but I do NOT want to dip into my food rations so soon. I wonder if I can offset the flavors by mixing them?"  
>She dug through the tree limbs until she found the large sour green leaf, tore a large portion off, then drug the piece out of the bag. She tore a smaller part off, placed one of the sweet leaves on top of the piece, and placed both in her mouth at once, chewing them together thoroughly.  
>Connie nodded in satisfaction as the flavors melded together to make each one tolerable. "It's not perfect, but it'll do for a first night's meal. Itadakimasu!" she whispered out before stuffing more of the alien foliage in her mouth, filling her stomach up with the blend of the sweet and sour leaves.  
>With her stomach filled and her position as hidden as she could get it, Connie yawned before laying herself down as far back as she could get from the makeshift door. After a few minutes, she drifted off to sleep, one more thought passing through her mind. "Tomorrow, I find something better to eat."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It hasn't been a full Earth day for Connie yet, she just figured she'd get some rest and not wander around a strange jungle at night.


	2. An unexpected awakening and encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie is awoken by a noise in the forest, and takes actions accordingly.

>Connie laid in her makeshift shelter, resting her body and mind during the dark hours of the planet. As she slept, the nocturnal life moved around, unseen by the girl, moving through the treetops and along the ground, going about their usual routine, oblivious to the small human's presence. As the hours passed, the environment started becoming brighter once more, the night time critters went back into hiding, and the rays began filtering through the treetops to touch the makeshift door Connie had constructed.   
>Connie's eyes shot open as a loud cracking sound echoed through the forest around her. She scrambled to sit strait up, rubbing the weariness from her eyes. They quickly adjusted to the low light created from the first sunbeams shining through the gaps in her makeshift door. She slung the larger leaf bag she had crafted onto her back, then strapped her small brown bag with her starting and emergency supplies onto her back afterwords.   
>As Connie finished strapping the bags she had to herself, another cracking sound echoed through the forest, much louder than the next on. Thoughts began running through her mind. "Shale, something's coming, and it sounds big. Wait, shale? When did I.....worry about that later Connie, focus! You need to get moving, now!"  
>Connie forced herself to stand and moved her body towards the door she had tied together out of tree limbs and vines. She hesitated for a moment as she pushed the door aside and looked at it. The wood was no big loss, she could always cut more, but the vines had been the only ones she'd seen, and she really didn't want to use more of her own hair if it could be avoided. After a brief moment to look around the forest, keeping her eyes and ears peeled, seeing and hearing nothing move, she decided to remove the vines and save as many as she could.   
>Connie started undoing the knots and weaving she had done to create her makeshift door, her fingers working through her knots quickly, stuffing sections of vines in her leaf bag as she freed them. Sweat began dripping off of her forehead as she kept working furiously. The silence the forest had fallen into was unnerving her, the first light of day should have made the forest more active, and yet it wasn't. Connie knew that was never a good sign, had read in her survival books that a quiet forest was the sign of a predator on the prowl.   
>Another loud crack sounded, much closer than the others had been, causing Connie to jump up in shock, her eyes widening in surprise. She looked at the half deconstructed door and shook her head, making a few quick tears at the vines and stuffing pieces in her bag before she threw the rest aside and thinking to herself. "Whatever is out there, it's getting closer to me, I've gotta go now!"   
>Connie hesitated for a moment, looking around at her environment one more time. Nothing was flying through the air, she couldn't see any leaves falling from movement either. She had to make a choice of a direction to move and fast. She glanced at the path she had taken to get to the small mount of soil, seeing remains of her own tracks in the soil. "Can't go that way. That leaves strait forward, to the left, or to the right. But which way do I go?"  
>A small rustling sound to her right caught Connie's attention. from within a small blue bush at the base of a red tree trunk, a small blue creature popped out. The creature's face reminded Connie of a cat's back on Earth, except it's head was adorned with several tufts of hair that looked like blue leaves and its ears were longer, like a rabbit's. It's body reminded Connie of a squirrel, except the forelegs were just as large as the hind legs, and the tail had darker blue rings on it from base to tip.   
>Connie watched in brief wonder as she saw the creature scramble from the bush and up the tree trunk. The creature had made Connie's decision easier. "Okay, right is out of the question, something scared it into moving. If it's pursuing something, left is just as dangerous. Strait forward it is."  
>Connie pushed herself into a sprint, moving quickly into the forest strait ahead of the path she had already tread. As she pushed the lower hanging limbs aside, her arms started to accumulate small scrapes upon them from where the limbs were snapping back into place. Connie winced as pain started shooting through her arms.   
>A loud cracking noise behind her caused Connie's body to chill with dread. She didn't know what was making it, but she really didn't want to find out. She picked up her pace, ducking down lower to avoid the lower hanging limbs entirely, doing her best to run faster and push the limbs aside at the same time.   
>As Connie kept moving forward, she felt her small brown bag snag on a branch. She did her best not to curse out as she paused in her tracks and started pulling at the bag to get it free. Another loud snap and a low growl caused Connie to freeze in fear, her head turning towards the noise and her eyes widening in fear at what she saw.   
>The creature was a dark purple color, it's entire form seemed to be flowing like liquid, bits dripping off and splashing to the ground before moving back into the main mass. A huge reptilian head with light blue eyes looking strait towards Connie. Its neck had several constantly shifting gaps upon it, opening and closing in a pattern. The main body of the creature reminded Connie of the images of limbless fantasy dragons she had saw, large and powerful, gaps similar to those on its neck existing upon its torso, bits of organs and bones shining through the holes, some of them a darker purple, others a sickly green.   
>From its body, a singular clawed arm stretched forward, four clawed fingers closed into a large purple fist. The creature's eyes narrowed as it spotted Connie before its maw opened, the liquid pulling apart and shifting into several jagged fangs before it let out a loud roar, its singular fist crashed into the branches between it and Connie, snapping them like toothpicks.   
>Connie let out a frustrated groan as she pulled her sword and cut the strap of her brown bag, freeing herself from her bag before she pushed herself into a run, much faster than she had moved before, swinging her sword wildly in the hopes of cutting down the branches in her path.   
>Connie looked around her desperately as she ran. She could hear the large creature moving behind her, crashing through the remaining limbs rapidly, the cracking sound growing louder as it drew closer to her. She knew she had to do something to throw it off, and she wasn't sure how well her sword would work on something like that beast.   
>Her heart leapt in joy as she spotted a thicker cluster of limbs and vines off to her right. Their color was different from the surrounding trees, the wood a deep green and the vines a lovely gold, but she didn't have time to wonder why they were different. She veered off towards them, lunging forward and crawling through them on her belly, her leaf bag pulling free from her body behind her. She could hear the creature growl out in frustration as it caught up to the point she had veered off from, which prompted her to pick up the pace of her crawling.   
>A scream of wild pain and a loud hissing, like something being dissolved behind her sent another chill through her form as she kept crawling. After a few more minutes of crawling, Connie came across an opening in the vines, a large grey wall of stone forming a steep cliff side a short distance away, a large cave opening was formed in the grey stone.  
>With a final burst of strength, Connie made a dash for the cave, taking a few quick turns within before stopping to catch her breath. She strained her ears, listening for any signs of movement. After ten minutes of nothing, not even snapping or cracking, she let out a sigh of relief.   
>"Whatever that thing was, it looks like I threw it off, or something else distracted it." She whispered out before running her hands along her body. Her jacket and pants were now ripped in several places, small cuts covered her arms and legs in the spots where the fabric was missing.   
>Connie kicked the ground in frustration as she realized she lost both bags and what that meant for her. "Great, I lost my food, the wood I gathered, the vines, the healing tears, and that sensor on the communicator will start ticking down if it stays still for too long. Pearl is going to start looking for me if it sends out a signal! I'm not ready to leave, I just got started!"  
>Connie slumped down as she kept thinking. "But, that THING might still be out there! If it catches me and I can't take it out, there won't be anything left of me to rescue! C'mon, calm down Connie, think!"  
>Connie took a deep breath before she listed out her options verbally. "Okay, you have three options with the bags, and three options with the way you can proceed. I can leave the bags behind, go back for just the leaf bag, or go back for both bags. I can proceed through this cave, I can go back to the forest, or I can try and scale the cliff side and see what's up there. If I go back to the forest, there's no reason not to grab the leaf bag on my way, as well as some of the limbs and vines I passed through. But, what should I do?"   
>Connie sighed as she ran through the options in her head, trying to decide what the best course for her to do was. She knew time was against her, the longer she sat still, the more likely it was the choice would be made for her. She had to make up her mind fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying something new, an interactive story of sorts. What should she do? Pick a path option and a bag option here: https://www.strawpoll.me/18495447


	3. Bag retrieval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie goes back for her bags.

>Connie weighed her options carefully in her mind for a few minutes before coming to a decision, whispering out to herself as she stood up from the cave's floor. "Right, my adventure has just begun, I have to at least TRY to recover the bag with my starting supplies, or Pearl will start looking for me. No reason not to grab the leaf bag I made on my way to my brown bag, and I can look around and see if I can tell where that monster went."   
>Brushing herself off, Connie proceeded to sprint out of the cave. She flinched a little as the bright sunlight touched her face as she exited the cave, rubbing her eyes for a moment before proceeding towards the dense gold vines growing in a tangles mass along the ground and up the sides of the trees, green tree limbs from the different colored trees reaching down and joining with the mass, forming a solid wall of plants in front of the girl.   
>Connie smiled as she saw the vines and the tree limbs, and the ground around them. There were signs of where she had crawled through on her stomach, but no signs of anything following her through. "So far so good." she thought to herself as she started to hack away at the mass with her sword, clearing an easier path for herself to walk through and creating a secondary pile of materials she could pick up and take with her.   
>It took her five minutes to hack her way through the dense mass before she came out into the forest proper. Near the entrance of the mass she had crawled through sat her green leaf bag, a little scuffed up but still intact. She smiled as she slung it back onto her back with a grin.   
>Her eyes widened with surprise as she looked down at the forest ground and spotted a small pool of purple liquid with grey streaks in it resembling a thick sludge. Connie stared in disbelief for a moment before her eyes stared moving around, catching sight of more pools trailing off into the forest, moving away from the path that she had ran along.   
>A thought passed through Connie's mind. "This stuff, the creature I encountered was dripping it, but it was moving back into its body.......what could have caused it to stay separate? A deliberate trap left behind, or did something more dangerous come along and hurt it?"   
>Connie shook her head "It doesn't matter, at least whatever that thing was went the opposite direction from my other bag. Hopefully I can recover it safely. One thing's for sure, these woods are too dangerous to stay in. I don't like the idea of being exposed in the open while climbing either, unless I have no other choice. Guess I'm delving into the cave after I get my bag."   
>Connie continued sprinting down the path, the limbs splintered apart from the alien beast chasing after her, leaving the path unobstructed. She smiles as she find her bag with ease after a few minutes of sprinting, still snagged on the branch she left it on. Her fingers move quickly as she works to untangle the bag from the limbs it snagged on. She lets out a sigh as she spots the clean cut she made in the bag's only strap, her desperation to get away clouding her judgement. "Should have cut the limbs, way to go Connie. I'll figure out how to fix it later, gotta get out of these woods before something else shows up." Connie throws the brown bag into her leaf bag before she breaks into a sprint once more.  
>Connie made her way quickly back through the path towards the tangled mess of vines and tree limbs she had crawled and hacked through. She pauses for a moment to cut some longer pieces of gold vines free, stuffing them and some of the green wood into her leaf bag, focusing more on the vines than the wood itself, then proceeding towards the cave.  
>Connie paused for a brief moment at the mouth of the cave, an opening in a large grey cliff side. She had dashed inside out of desperation, but now that her head was clearer, she was determined to take things slower and be more cautious.   
>She squinted her eyes as the interior of the cave grew darker, trying desperately to follow the same path she had before to start. After making her way through the same turns she had already taken, Connie let out a light sigh of frustration. "Going to need a light if I want to keep going in."  
>Thinking back to the survival books she had read, Connie dumped the leaf bag out, separating out her materials and setting her brown bag aside. She pulled the pink striped purple leaves off of a few of the red limbs, made a small pile, carved a notch into one of the larger red limbs, placed the leaves into the notch, then put a smaller red limb into the hole with the leaves.   
>Connie took a deep breath before she started spinning the stick between her hands quickly, trying to create enough friction to start a spark. After a few moments of rubbing, a small stream of smoke began rising from the crevice carved into the wood. She blew into it gently as she kept spinning the stick between her hands, and was rewarded with a small fire at the end of the stick. "Perfect, now I have light!"   
>Connie looked around the cave in awe now that she could see it clearly. Along the grey walls were stripes of orange, purple, and green, swirling together in some spots and creating lovely patterns on the walls. Both the ceiling and the floor were smooth, no signs of stalactites or stalagmites forming, signaling that the cave was water tight. "Good, don't have to worry about the cave suddenly flooding." Connie thought to herself in relief.  
>Connie looked to her brown bag and the cut strap and sighed. She wedged her makeshift torch between two larger cave rocks before turning her attention to her bag and supplies. She grabbed a shorter length of the green vines she had saved from the door she made and tied it carefully onto both ends of the cut strap, pulling the pieces together tight to create a temporary fix.  
>"This'll work for now, at least I can keep it separate from my larger supply bag again." Connie thought to herself as she slung the bag back over her shoulder. She carefully gathered up both colors of wood and both colors of vines, trying to keep them as separated as possible as she placed them in her leaf bag, placing the red wood and the remains of the large green leaf near the top, pulling a few pink striped purple leaves off of the red limbs and taking another chunk out of the spare green leaf, placing both in her mouth as she chewed and had an impromptu snack.   
>Connie shuddered as the sweet and sour flavors blended in her mouth once more, throwing the leaf bag onto her back next to her brown bag before taking her sword in her right hand and her torch in her left.   
>Connie took one more deep breath before she started proceeding further into the cave. She looked from the walls to the floor, looking for any signs of creature activity before she made her choices, the fire at the end of her makeshift torch flickering gently as she moved cautiously.   
>The more turns Connie made and the further she went into the cave, the more uneasy she became. There were no signs of life at all, no scratches, no paw prints, no discarded pieces of plants, no bones, no noises from nervous critters. A thought passed through Connie's mind after an hour without any signs of life. "This.....this isn't right. There should have been something in here by now, some signs of life living in here, unless I've gotten really lucky in choosing the paths I've taken. Maybe I should have climbed the cliff after all. Too late to go back now, I've already gone pretty far in."  
>A few more minutes passed, Connie continued taking path choices through the cave, the uneasy feeling growing within her. She was about to change her mind and turn around when she caught a sound, faint and in the distance. She strained her ears to listen, trying to figure out what it was.  
>Connie's heart leapt with joy as she came to a conclusion about what the noise was. "Is....is that liquid flowing through the cave?! Finally, something I can use!"   
>Connie started pushing herself forward through the cave faster, using the sound of the flowing liquid to guide her through her path choices, the sound growing louder with every turn, her heart beating faster and her legs moving quicker as she drew closer to the sound.   
>After a dozen more path choices, she found herself looking directly at the source of the sound. Carving a path through the cave, a large body of light yellow liquid flowed through the grey cave floor, rushing through quickly, splashing up onto the cave floor as it flowed through the natural curves, forming small pools close to the river bank.   
>Cautiously, Connie approached the river and placed her hands in one of the small yellow puddles, scooping the liquid up and taking a cautious sip. A cautious sip turned into a longing gulp as the flavor danced along her tongue. "Wow, it tastes just like honey does back home! I wonder if this is the main liquid of the planet, or if this is an isolated case?"   
>Other thoughts passed through Connie's mind as she moved from puddle to puddle, drinking more of the liquid to slake her thirst. "Okay, think. This liquid has to come from somewhere, and it has to go somewhere. Where there's liquid, there's bound to be animals that drink it. I need a better source of food than the plants I've gathered so far. What's the best course of action here?"  
>Connie sat on the cave floor as she ran her options through her head. "I could set up here for a bit, wait and see if something shows up. Though, this cave is very quiet and has no signs of life inside it besides this river, something......big and nasty could make it's home here. I could also follow the flow of the liquid, either go upstream to the source, or go downstream to where it all flows out. Both ways should lead out of the cave. The last thing I could do is find an alternate path out of the cave and forget the liquid flowing here."  
>Connie took a deep breath as she contemplated the choices laid out before her, once more gripped with uncertainty. She knew she had to make a choice before something came along to make it for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only got two votes last time, and nobody picked a bag option. Giving this one more try, if you're enjoying the story, please choose what you want to see Connie do next. The poll to do so is here: https://www.strawpoll.me/18505773


	4. Caveside stakeout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie decides to eat and lie in wait, in the hopes of hunting something small to eat.

>Connie took a few moments to think about her options, before her stomach rumbled in protest. She let out a long sigh as she lodged her makeshift torch in between two rocks, took her bags off of her shoulders and dug through each one, pulling off a bit of the larger green leaf and a few pink striped purple leaves out of the leaf bag, and digging through her brown bag and pulling out one of the nine protein bars she had brought along.  
>Connie took a look around the cave as she peeled the wrapper off of the protein bar, wrapped it up in bits of alien leaves, and started taking bites out of it. She shuddered as the intense flavors of the leaves once more mingled in her mouth, completely overwhelming the flavor of the protein bar. A thought passed through Connie's mind. "I really need to find a way to dilute the flavor of these leaves. If only I could boil them in something......wait, I know what to do there!"  
>With the memory of something she read coming to her, Connie excitedly placed some of the smaller pieces of red wood in a pile, lit the stack of wood on fire with her makeshift torch, gathered some of the yellow liquid from the river flowing through the cave in the remains of the large green leaf, heated a grey rock within the fire for a short time, then knocked the hot rock into the large liquid holding leaf with her sword. She smiled to herself as she sprinkled a few of the pink striped purple leaves into the liquid and let it sit for a moment, watching steam rise up from the liquid, a sweet scent filling the cave as the liquid boiled from the heat of the rock, creating a brew of tea from the leaves she threw in and from the leaf she used as a container.   
>As the steam died down and the liquid settled, Connie carefully removed the rock and scooped up a little of the liquid in her hands, taking a cautious swig. She licked her lips and smiled as she tasted the result, the sweet and sour flavors of the leaves had spread evenly through the liquid, creating a tolerable flavor. She removed the leaves from around her protein bar and sipped at the liquid as she finished her snack.   
>With her belly satisfied for the time being, Connie put out the fire, cut away the charred portions of wood, and stuffed everything salvageable back into her leaf bag. "Okay, this place seems quiet enough, and I do need a source of protein other than my bars. I only have eight left, I need to use them sparingly. I can find a place to hide in the cave, close to a way out in case something dangerous comes along." Connie thought to herself as she looked around the cave. In the wide opening, grey, green, purple, and orange rocks were scattered around the area, natural stalagmites and stalactites had formed from the moisture of the river, and from the openings in the cave roof that were allowing a few thin beams of light to trickle through.   
>After a few moments of looking around, Connie saw a particularly large pile of rocks near the opening the river was flowing from. She gave a quiet thanks to the natural light as she made her way behind the pile and hid herself and her torch the best she could, crouching down behind the pile and peeking her head out slightly, keeping her eyes on the river of yellow liquid. She had hidden herself the best she could. All she had to do now was wait.   
>The minutes passed by slowly, five, ten, fifteen, dragging on as Connie waited in silence, crouched down and afraid to move, not wanting to make any noise in case something was already in the cave, listening for the sound of movement.  
>The minutes drug on into hours, accumulating into four hours total. Still no signs of any life moving around or through the cave, no footsteps, no wing flaps, no screeches or sounds of any kind. Connie's patience was starting to wear thin as she thought to herself. "What's the deal here, this is a source of liquid, presumably safe for the creatures here to drink! Why hasn't something come along yet? Something should have come by now......unless this liquid is toxic to the locals but safe for humans to consume. But then, if they can't drink this, what do they drink?"  
>Connie let out a light sigh, preparing herself to get up and move on, when the sound of claws clicking along stone began to echo through the cave, silently at first, then growing louder and faster. Connie's body tensed up as she realized, something was coming at last, and whatever it was, it was picking up its pace.   
>After a few minutes of the clicking sound echoing through the cave and growing closer, the creature behind the noise finally became visible. Connie's eyes widened as she looked the creature's body over.  
>The creature's body was long and slender, covered in light blue scales, a long thin tail coiling up like a chamelion's behind its slender body. Four long and slender legs stretched out from its body, two behind it, two in the front, their shape similar to a dog's legs, ending in bright blue bird claws with sharp black talons at the end of each toe. The creature's head reminded Connie of a horse back at home, still covered in blue scales, and where its snout should have been was replaced with a thin yellow bird beak. Seven large fleshy protrusions spread out, starting at the top of the creature's head and spreading along its neck, ending right at the base. The protrusions were connected by a translucent webbing, twitching as they shifted around as the creature turned its head, surveying the cave.   
>After a few moments of looking around, the blue alien creature slowly approached the river, dipping its head into the flow and lapping at the yellow liquid within. Connie looked at it in wonder before she shook her head and thought. "That thing is a little larger than I was hoping for, but it is fresh meat. It looks like its a scavenger and not a hunter, that's a point in my favor. I won't be able to take all the meat with me, but.....that thing is going down."   
>Connie slowly crept out from behind her hiding spot, sword in hand, slowly approaching the blue alien horse lizard thing while it was still distracted with drinking. She got halfway to the creature before her foot stepped onto a loose rock, causing her foot to slip a little, kicking the rock away and creating a clattering noise.   
>Connie tensed up as she saw the creature raise its head from the river and look right at her, its yellow eyes shifting into a bright red color as it spotted her. "Oh shit, it sees me." Connie whispered out, preparing herself to either fight or chase the creature down.  
>With a loud screech, the creature started charging towards Connie, its body moving swiftly through the cave, the sound of rapid claw clicks filling the cavern.   
>Connie leapt out of the path of the charge as the creature drew closer to her. She smiled as she watched it struggle to skid to a stop and saw it crash into a nearby larger rock, shaking its head in a daze. "This thing must rely on its strength to take down enemies, this'll be easy!"   
>The creature let out another scream as Connie repositioned herself, placing another large rock behind her. Once more, the creature charged, and once more, Connie leapt aside and watched the creature crash into a rock, unable to stop its own momentum in time. This time, Connie sprinted towards where the creature crashed, sword in hand.   
>As the creature shook its head in a daze, Connie let out a shout as she thrust her blade into the creatures scaly blue hide. A strange purple blood oozed out of the wound as the creature thrashed around, knocking Connie back and leaving her sword lodged in the alien's hide. Connie took a few stumbling steps back as she covered her ears, the creature's loud and shrill cries growing louder as they reverberated through the cave.   
>A few more moments passed, the creature's thrashing began to die down, the flow of blood slowing to a trickle, its cries growing weaker and its blue body growing paler. Its eyes shifted from red back to yellow, and then to a dull grey as it looked at Connie one last time, then slumped down upon the cave floor, its purple tongue flopping out of its yellow beaked mouth.   
>Connie stared at the creature for a few minutes before she started to cautiously approach it. When she got to it, the first thing she did was remove her sword from its hide with a quick yank, taking a few steps back as she got it freed, preparing for any retaliation, in case the creature was faking. Connie gripped her sword tightly, looking for any signs of movement.   
>A few more moment's passed before Connie loosened the grip around her sword and smiled, whispering out in satisfaction and a hint of remorse. "Sorry big guy, I need to eat something else. You were just the first thing that came along. Your death won't be in vain."   
>Connie knelt down and whispered out a quick prayer before she got to work cutting into the creature's body. She would be enjoying a feast of alien flesh, the reward for her hours of patience. She would make sure she used as much of the creature as she could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No more poll choices, not enough voting on them. But I'll continue with the series. If you want Connie to face a specific challenge, feel free to suggest it in the comments.


	5. Utilizing the kill, following the river

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie cuts into the alien's corpse, takes what she thinks she can use and carry comfortably, then starts out of the cave.

>From within her makeshift leaf bag, Connie pulled out the remains of the large leaf she had eaten parts of and used to boil the yellow liquid flowing in the river on. She let out a sigh as she laid it on the ground next to the deal alien beast and whispered to herself. "I need to pick up more of these large leaves when I can. I hate to use this one now, but I need something to wrap as much of the meat up as I can."  
>Connie worked diligently as she cut into the dead alien's blue scaly hide, starting her cuts from the stab wound she had inflicted upon the monster and working her way out, piling the raw blue meat upon the leaf as she worked. She trimmed the fat away as she cut, tossing the flabby bits aside, wanting to conserve as much space as she could.  
>Connie grimaced a little as she kept cutting through the alien's carcass, reaching the organs and the bones of the beast. As much as she hated the thought of eating the beast's organs, she knew the organs in animals are usually more nutrient packed than the muscle tissue, knew it would be a shame to waste them.  
>She placed the creature's three hearts, two stomachs, six lungs, five livers, and many feet of intestines aside in their own small pile, the organs colored a strange light green, darkening slightly as they touched the air of the cave.  
>With the organs of the digestive and circulatory systems removed, Connie turned her attention to the creature's horse-like head. Once more, she grimaced as she raised her sword up and made two clean cuts, one severing the tongue from the creature's mouth, the other cutting open the top of its head. Connie let out a gasp as a strange black liquid poured out from the head wound. The creature's cranium was completely hollow inside, leaving Connie confused about how the creature functioned without a brain, relieved she didn't have to dig the brain out, and a little disappointed she didn't get to eat an alien brain yet.  
>Connie left the eyes behind in their sockets, not wanting to risk eating those. She wasn't sure what had caused them to shift colors like they did, and with the lack of a brain in the creature's skull, she didn't want to take the chance on them.  
>With the organs plucked and a good portion of the meat carved off, the leaf was piled high with alien meat. Connie let out a sigh before she stood up and took both her bags off of her back, placing them gently down next to the pile of meat before digging more wood out of the leaf bag. She knew she needed to cook the meat she had scraped from the beast fast, unsure of how quick it would turn and spoil now that it was separated from the main body.  
>With a small pile of wood placed a safe distance away from her supplies and meat, Connie made a short dash over to where she had left her torch behind the rocks she had used as cover. She let out a light grunt as she pulled the piece of wood free, taking a moment to look at how low the stick had burned. "Gonna need a new piece of wood for my torch soon." She muttered to herself as she made her way back to her soon to be meal and her supplies.  
>Connie placed the torch on top of the pile of wood, watching the fire spread over the red pieces and flare up before she pulled out a larger green piece of wood from the leaf bag and lit the tip. She wasn't sure how well the red wood burned compared to the green or how long a torch made with the green wood would last, but she'd find out.  
>One piece at a time, Connie skewered the alien meat and held it in the fire, starting with an alien heart. She held her sword and the heart in the fire for a few moments and watched as the light green color shifted into a darker green, then into a lovely light brown. Tentatively, she pulled the heart and her sword from the fire, let the heart cool down, and slowly bit into the heart.  
>Purple blood flowed as Connie ripped a piece of heart away with her teeth and chewed. Connie hummed and thought to herself as she savored the meats of her efforts. "Chewy, a strange flavor, reminds me of a kiwi mixed with a sugared strawberry topped with bell peppers. Tastes a little overdone, I'll have to adjust for that, but a great meal overall."  
>Connie kept eating away at the heart with her left hand as she used her right hand to skewer piece after piece of alien meat, cooking it for a moment and waiting for the meat to start turning the light brown before pulling the meat out of the fire and shaking it off her sword back onto the leaf. As she cooked the meat, Connie cooked a few more of the intestines for herself to eat, two of the livers and one of the lungs.  
>When she got to cooking the stomachs, Connie slowed down a little to slice them open and drain the contents upon the cave floor, grimacing as tiny bits of bone, clumps of hair, and the sickly grey liquid of the stomach itself splattered upon the cave floor, hissing a little as the stomach acid ate into the rocky floor.  
>After five hours worth of work cutting and cooking, Connie let out a deep sigh as she wrapped up the cooked spoils of her kill in the large leaf and crammed it into her bag, desperately hoping the meat wouldn't spoil too quickly after being cooked.  
>With the meat packed away, Connie turned her attention back to the alien corpse. She had all the meat she dared to try and carry with her, but there were still things from the corpse she could use later. Connie hummed to herself as she took her sword and began cutting the leftover bits of meat and sinew away from the larger blue bones, the metal of her sword scraping along them as she whittled bits away from one end, forming a sharp point upon them and sticking them carefully into her bag. "These will come in handy for setting up a protective perimeter the next time I camp out."  
>The alien corpse picked of everything Connie wanted to salvage, she once more turned her attention to the river, taking a moment to wash her sword and her hands off with the flowing yellow liquid, then knocking the dying embers and flames of her fire into the river, and finally cupping her hands together to take a few long drinks of liquid. With a food supply secured for a few days, she needed to decide what she'd do next.  
>Connie started whispering aloud as she ran through her choices again. "Okay, now that my stomach is filled, I can think about this more clearly. It's clear following the river is my best chance of getting out of this cave and moving on, no need to go wandering in the darkness for an exit that might not exist."  
>Connie slung her bags back on her back before she picked up her sword and her green torch in her hands, whispering out her thoughts as she paced back and forward along the cave floor. "Okay, think, following the river downstream will eventually lead to the coast or a lake perhaps. I can try to fish more reliably next to a larger body of liquid, smaller pieces of food might be better, but who knows what could lurk in the liquids. The coast also leaves me more exposed during the nights, I would need to figure out a way to hide myself if I go that way."  
>"On the other hand, following the river upstream will lead me to a higher point. I could survey the area from up high and decide where to go better from there. Falling becomes a real risk the higher up I go though, and there could be flying predators in the skies I haven't seen yet. But there's likely going to be more cover too, caves and hills and trees to hide behind and in."  
>After a few minutes of running the options in her head, Connie made her choice. Steeling her nerves and her torch head out in front of her, Connie made her way along the banks of the river, walking against the flow of liquids, a thought running through her mind "Getting a better view of my surroundings is worth the risk. I need to see more of this world if I want to find those limb enhancers, or even just survive the full two weeks."  
>Connie made her way carefully through the cave, following against the flow of liquid thought the cave. She pushed herself to move quickly through the cave, wanting to get to the mouth of it as quickly as she could.  
>After an hour of twists and turns, Connie found herself feeling exhausted. To complicate things, the flow of liquid ran into a wall, from an opening too small for Connie to walk through. She sighed as she got on her belly and placed her torch gently at the opening. She wasn't sure she could squeeze along the passage, and she knew she was too weary to try and fight against the flow.  
>Muttering to herself, she stood up and moved away from the river bank towards some larger rocks, wedging the bones she had sharpened into the rocks around her, forming a few lines of pointy protective barriers, hopefully enough of a deterrent to keep wildlife away from her, or give her enough noise to wake her up if something did approach.  
>Stretching her arms and legs out and yawning, Connie crouched down behind the rocks and laid on the cold stone floor, using her brown bag as a pillow as she rested and muttering to herself before she dozed off. "Just a quick rest......and then I make my way out of this cave. Can't wait......to see......what I can discover.....outside."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this still okay at a teen rating? I'm actually not sure, thinking I might have to bump it up to mature for having Connie munch on an alien heart, kidneys, and a lung.


	6. Continuing upstream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a good rest, Connie continues to make her way up the river.

>After sleeping on the cave floor for an indeterminate amount of time, Connie began to stir once more, stretching out her arms and legs as she roused herself from her slumber. The first thing she did was look around at the barriers of sharpened bones she had set up, smiling as she saw they were still intact and in place, no signs of anything disturbing them. The next thing she did was look to the torch she had made of a piece of the green wood she had cut from the brambles of golden vines and green trees. Connie smiled as she saw the fire upon the wood was still burning, the stick itself only half burned away.   
>Connie smiled and hummed to herself as she started pulling the bone spikes from the rocks she had wedged them between, packing them into her green leaf bag one by one until none were left out. She then proceeded to grab her sword and torch from where she had left them, turning her attention back to the problem she was left with before she decided to sleep.   
>With a clearer mind, she turned her attention back to the small opening in the cave wall, where the yellow liquid of the river was flowing out at a steady pace. Cautiously, she crouched down, placed her sword on the ground, and reached into the river with her right hand to feel how strong the river was flowing from the gap.   
>She sighed as she felt the push of the current against her hand. It felt stronger here than it did back where she had killed the alien creature. A thought ran through her head. "Either the source of the liquid is close, or its stronger here because of a sharp drop in the flow from a higher point, making the river pick up momentum. I don't want to try fighting this current if I can avoid it."  
>Connie focused on the gap in the wall, running her eyes along the opening, getting down on her stomach and placing the torch within the opening, trying to see if it lowered down at all along the path. She couldn't see any dips in the ceiling, but she still felt uneasy about squeezing herself in there, a thought running through her mind. "If something attacks me while I'm crawling through there, I won't be able to properly defend myself."  
>Connie let out a groan of frustration as she pulled the longest branch of red wood she had from within her bag. She slowly lowered the cut wood into the yellow liquid, smiling in satisfaction as she felt the bottom of the branch touch the floor of the river.   
>Connie pulled the branch out and stood up strait, placing the wet end on the ground and comparing how high the waters dampened the branch compared to herself, her smile growing wider as she saw the river was only waist deep. "Could be worse, I'm going for it." She whispered to herself softly.   
>Tossing the wet wood aside and steeling her nerves, Connie picked her sword back up, placed it in her bag, clutched her torch tightly, and lowered her body into the yellow fluid. She immediately felt the current pushing against her small form, coming up to her waist and pushing hard against her legs. Despite that, she managed to hold herself steady and pushed against the flow, her right hand on the shoreline as she slowly walked up the river and through the gap in the wall, her head brushing against the ceiling of the low opening as she walked.  
>Connie's chest heaved as she walked. Despite having just rested, she could feel her body straining against the flow of the river, her muscles straining in her legs as she took each slow step forward.   
>It took her an hour of walking through the water before the cave around her opened up along the banks again, wide enough for her to stand up properly. Breathing a sigh of relief, Connie tossed the torch up onto the river's right bank, then pulled herself out of the river with her arms, rolling over from her stomach onto her back as she took a few deep breaths, taking a moment to rest from her fight against the current.   
>After a few moments of resting, Connie stood back up, picking her torch up from the ground and pulling her sword out of her bag as she once more looked around the cave as she started following along the river bank once more. Yellow liquid dripped from her body as she walked, her eyes scanning the cave for any signs of movement, or places along the walls that were different. She saw a few tunnels leading away from the river as she walked, making a mental note of them in case she needed to use them.  
>Another half hour of walking led Connie to a dilemma. In the distance, she could hear a low rumbling sound, like liquid crashing against the rocks. Before her, two different smaller rivers had fed into the larger river she had been following. Connie stopped walking as her eyes darted between the two paths before her, thinking to herself. "On one hand, I'm already on the right hand side, it'd be easier to keep following along the right hand river feeding into the main one. On the other hand, the rumbling sounds like it's coming from the left hand side. Crashing liquids usually means a waterfall, and going higher up is the end goal. But, will I be able to scale the waterfall at all? It could be coming from a narrow opening, or the rocks might be too slick for me to grip onto."  
>After a few minutes thinking it through, Connie made her choice. She backed away from the right hand bank until her back brushed against the cave wall. Narrowing her eyes in determination, she sprinted towards the bank, the distance closing between her and the river fast. With a strong push of her legs, Connie leapt from the right hand river bank her body soaring over the river a moment before her feet touched down on the left hand bank. She grinned in satisfaction as she started walking along the left hand side of the river, following the left tributary to wherever it was coming from.   
>Another fifteen minutes of walking, and of the rumbling noise growing louder, brought Connie to the source of the noise. Her eyes widened in awe as she saw the yellow liquid cascading down a steep incline within the cave, light filtering into the cave from a natural opening of the cave ceiling, the spray of liquid passing through beams of light forming arcing rainbows of red, brown, green, grey, orange, and yellow. She took a deep breath as she looked at the waterfall, her stomach rumbling a bit from hunger.   
>Connie smiled as she sat down on the cave floor and dug through her leaf bag. She would tackle the flow of water after a meal. She pulled out a few red pieces of wood, piling them up and lighting them on fire with her torch. She then proceeded to pull off a few of the pink stripped purple leaves from a few extra red pieces of wood, dug through her bag and pulled out a large slab of alien meat from within the leaf wrapping, skewered the meat with her sword, and heated it up with the fire after shoving the leaves into the meat.  
>A sweet aroma wafted through the air as Connie heated the meat back up, the leaves cooking within the meat as it heated back up. A few minutes is all it took before the aroma became too much for Connie to stand anymore.   
>Connie salivated as she pulled the meat from the fire, letting it cool off a bit before she pulled the meat off her sword and sunk her teeth into it. The sweetness of the leaves mingled perfectly with the naturally fruity flavor of the meat, tasting more like a dessert than a proper balanced meal.   
>Finishing off the slab of meat and smiling widely, Connie turned her attention back towards the waterfall. She knew she had to scale the slope to proceed forward. Plans of action started forming in her mind as she ran through the materials she had on hand and what she knew of the planet so far. She would consider her next move carefully before proceeding.


	7. Climbing the waterfall cliffside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie makes her way to the top of the cliff next to an alien waterfall.

>A few minutes of thinking were all it took for Connie to come up with a plan. Smiling, she pulled the leaf bag off of her back, pulled out three long pieces of yellow vines, tied each around her waist and the ends into makeshift lasso loops, then put the leaf bag back on her back, stuffing her sword into the bag, and throwing her torch into the river. As much as she hated to waste fire, she needed both hands for the climb, and she couldn't risk lighting the rest of her supplies on fire.   
>Connie focused on the steep climb as she swung one of the three loops around, tossing it up the slope and towards one of the protruding rocks. She smiled as the loop hooked around the rock. Giving a few tentative pulls, she checked to make sure the lasso would stay in place.   
>Satisfied with her work, Connie threw the other two lassos up the slope the same way, latching onto two other rocks, higher than the first, then checking to make sure they would stay in place. With her anchor lines secure, Connie could focus on her climb up the cliff with minimal concerns of falling and hurting herself.   
>Her muscles strained as she dug her fingers into the cliff side climb next to the yellow liquid waterfall, the rumble of the liquid sounding loudly in her right ear, a light mist of liquid combined with the liquid already in her clothes contributing to the difficulty of the climb, the weight of her wet clothes making her footing slippery. Combined with already thin crevices and ledges she was using to climb, it was taking most of her focus and strength to pull herself up. A thought ran through the girl's mind as she climbed. "Thank the stars this planet is so warm. A cold climb would have been worse."  
>Connie had lost track of how long she had been climbing up the cliff when she arrived at the first rock she had hooked. She looked over to the vine and sighed. She knew she couldn't leave it looped, it could prevent her from climbing higher. Tentatively, she reached over to the vine lasso loop with her right hand. She could feel her left hand's grip loosening as she strained to reach the loop, little bits of grey stone tumbling down from her movements. Sweat began to bead on her forehead as her fingers inched closer, more little rocks tumbling from the cliff side from around her left hand and now both of her feet.   
>One last stretch, and her fingers grasped around the loop, quickly pulling it free before letting it drop, her right hand digging back into the cliff side. She breathed a sigh of relief as the small rocks stopped falling from the cliff from under her left hand, her body shaking a bit from the stress and her exertion. Still, she was already a third of the way up. She had to keep going, she had to scale the waterfall cliff to continue her trip upstream.   
>Inch by inch, foot by foot, Connie kept dragging herself up the cliff side, a vine lasso dangling below her free. As she climbed, the stony cliff side started feeling more solid, the natural fingerholds and footholds growing wider, making her feel more comfortable with the climb itself.   
>When she arrived at the second lasso, two thirds of the way up, she took a quick pause to drag up the first lasso. Connie did her best to throw it up the cliff, the lasso loop catching around a rock close to the top and close to the third lasso. Once more, Connie found herself with a lasso loop next to her to unhook, this time on her left side.   
>Connie could feel her muscles strain in her left arm as she reached towards the hooked lasso. Try as she might, she found herself unable to reach it from her current position, the lasso remained just out of her reach. Letting out a deep sigh, she settled for grabbing a portion of the cliff closer to the lasso. Slowly, she adjusted her right hand's hold and her footing, inching her body closer to the lasso, a few loose pebbles tumbling down the cliff as she moved, her feet brushing them aside and off the footholds.   
>After a few minutes of inching towards the lasso loop, Connie had finally moved close enough to reach over and unhook it with ease. Taking the vine in her hand, she gave the loop a hard toss, smiling as it latched onto a rock closer to the top. With all three of her anchoring loops now at the top, the rest of her climb would be easier.   
>Connie's arms and legs began to shake as she got closer to the top. The rocky cliff side was getting slicker, the spray from the river coating the rocks and making her grip less sturdy than she liked. Still, she pulled herself up the cliff side, determined to reach the top and move on through the cave.  
>Grunting and straining, Connie finally made her way up the rest of the cliff, pulling herself up onto the flat riverbank at the top of the cliff, panting as she laid down on the cave floor to regain her energy. Looking off into the distance, Connie's heart soared through her exhaustion as she saw light shining in a large round shape ahead. She whispered out in relief. "Finally, the exit of the cave, or what I hope is an exit. Please let it be an exit."  
>Connie counted the time out in her head as she rested. After fifteen minutes had passed, her arms and legs weren't feeling as sore. She smiled as she sat up. Before she could go towards what she assumed was the exit, she needed to take care of some things.   
>The first thing Connie did was pull the leaf bag off of her back, then she pull her sword back out of the bag. If she was going to be outside, she needed to be able to cut branches, vines, and leaves to gather new supplies, and to have the sword ready to defend herself if she had to.   
>The second thing Connie did was give the three vines tied around her body a sharp tug, the lasso heads pulling free from the rocks they had been looped around. Connie worked diligently to untie the vines from around herself and to undo the lasso loops she had created, smiling as she dropped them back into her leaf bag before slinging it back onto her back.  
>Once her supplies were back in order and her sword was back out to defend herself with, Connie stood up, brushing her body off of bit before she sprinted down the cave and through the tunnels towards the light. The smile on her face grew as she took each step closer to freedom from the cave, yearning to see the alien environment once more.   
>Connie's thoughts were confirmed as the distance closed enough for her to see what was through the opening. She could see the bright orange alien sky up ahead. A low crashing sound was echoing from the mouth, a flow of yellow liquid now visible at the cave's mouth, spattering down before flowing down the slight incline into the cave itself. Connie couldn't see past the grey slope ahead of her, but she knew she had to be high up if liquid was crashing down from above her.   
>Connie let out a light gasp as she finally made her way out of the cave, and walked carefully up the slight slope to stand near the edge of the cliff. She took a moment to look behind her first, a large and tall peak of grey stone towered above her, the yellow liquid of the river flowing down the slope and from another opening above her. Connie quickly decided trying to climb up another slope just to get a little higher wasn't worth it. She would make do with the height she had achieved.   
>Connie turned her attention back to the scenery visible from the edge of the grey cliff she stood upon. She let out another gasp of wonder as she scanned the environment of the alien world from up high. Below her, a sea of trees spread out, the tops lined with the familiar pink striped purple leaves, with a few spots of blue and yellow striped leaves standing out.   
>Connie took a brief moment to wonder what made those trees so different before she kept scanning. To the left of the large forest, a huge body of yellow liquid lapped at a blue shoreline, an area Connie assumed was the shoreline of the piece of land she was on. She recalled Pearl telling her she wouldn't need to cross any large bodies of water to get to the limb enhancers, but the shoreline held the possibility for easier hunting, walking, and fishing. But it would also leave her more exposed.  
>To the right of the forest, Connie could see the trees thinning away, giving way to a bright orange grass. Connie could see the land rise and fall a little, forming rolling hillsides that stretched past her vision. That path too would lead her into the open, without the promise of easier hunting, but still offering a chance of new materials.   
>Strait ahead of her. Connie could see another large mountain range rising up from the trees in the distance. Unlike the one she stood upon, the mountains in the distance were a pure white. Whether it was because the mountains were coated in something similar to snow, or if it was the natural color of those rocks, Connie couldn't know. She knew mountains meant natural caves, places for herself and critters to hide, and another opportunity to view the land from up high if she went towards them.  
>Connie let out a sigh as she looked around her surroundings, spotting a natural sloping path leading downwards, the alien sunlight warming her body and helping to dry her clothes off from her swim in the river and from the splashes of the waterfall. A thought ran through her mind as she started walking down the path. "I don't know how far this leads, but it'll give me time to think of which way I want to go. I hope I don't have to climb down a steep slope too far, that last climb was exhausting."  
>Fortunately for the young girl, the path took her pretty close to the bottom of the mountainside. It had taken Connie an hour to walk it, but she had made it to the base of the mountain, the distance between the top of the ledge and the forest floor short enough that she felt comfortable just sliding down the slope to the bottom.  
>As she hit the bottom of the slope, her stomach rumbled in protest. It was time for her to eat something once more. Sighing, she slumped down at the base of the mountain, pulling the bag off her back to grab the supplies needed to make a fire and the meat she wanted to eat. She would make her final choice of direction after she ate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope people are still enjoying this. Writing out short blips like this for an adventure on an alien world is pretty fun.


	8. Journey to the beach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie makes her way towards the shoreline, determined to follow it towards the white mountain range in the distance.

>Connie wiped her mouth off with her torn jacket sleeve as she finished eating another meal of alien meat and plants, smiling in satisfaction as she stood up and used her sword to cover the still lit fire with dirt, watching the smoke rise up from under the dirt and gently die down.   
>With the threat of a forest fire adverted, Connie slung her bags back onto her back before walking towards her left. As much as she hated the idea of being out in the open, she knew using the sandy coastline would make the trip towards the white mountains easier. She knew there would be less angles to worry about attacks coming from as well, anything in the planet's yellow liquid ocean would be visible as it came towards the show, the major threats still lied in the jungle itself.   
>The coastline held another important advantage. If the meat in Connie's bag started to spoil, she could potentially use it as bait to go fishing. As much as Connie hoped the meat would last a while, she knew there was a good possibility it would start to spoil after a few days, even with it being cooked once.  
>With those thoughts in mind, Connie started walking away from the large grey mountain towards her left through the tall red trees and towards the beach.   
>Connie move carefully through the treeline, making as little sound as she could to avoid alerting any potential predators that might be lurking in the jungle still. As she walked through the forest, she used her sword to cut small marks in the trees, path markers in case she needed to make her way back towards the mountain, or to mark where she'd been if she found herself lost. She was also on the lookout for another one of the giant flowers she had encountered earlier, to gather more large leaves to wrap food in, use for boiling liquids, or patch up her leaf bag if the need arose.   
>After an hour of walking through the forest as quietly as she could, Connie's heart leapt with joy as she spotted a large red flower with orange stripes a short distance away, past three lines of tree trunks. Her legs strained a little as she sprinted towards the plant, her smile widening as she laid eyes on the large yellow leaves around the base. She wasn't sure what these leaves would taste like, but she didn't care for now. Larger flowers were proving to be less common than the girl had hoped. Using her sword, she carefully removed the eight large yellow leaves from around the base of the flower, folded them up as compact as she could, and placed them at the top of her leaf bag.   
>Connie's smile persisted as she continued through the forest. Occasionally, she'd catch sights of smaller creatures moving along the ground close to her, blurs of blue, green, red, and purple, critters she assumed were frightened of her movements, or just moving around looking for their own meals. Connie's mind turned back towards the small blue critter she had encountered after waking up from her first rest, towards it's little kitty face, it's long blue bunny ears, it's squirrel-like body and its ringed tail. She found herself wondering if any of the smaller blurs she was seeing were like that critter, or if they were different. She shook her head as she refocused her attention to the forest ahead of her. She could contemplate the wildlife the next time she stopped to eat. She had a coastline to get to.  
>An uneasy feeling settled into Connie's guts as another hour passed, the forest moderately quiet save for the occasional blurs of movement she caught. She was glad she hadn't been attacked, but she was also worried about the silence. Her survival instincts and knowledge told her that the quieter things were, and the longer things stayed quiet, the more likely it was that something dangerous was nearby.   
>Connie gripped her sword tightly as she kept moving forward, keeping her eyes and ear open, her body beginning to tense up from the perceived threat that might be lurking in the forest. The blurs of movement were no longer visible along the ground, there were no noises, no limbs cracking, no thuds, no screeches or roars. Her nervousness grew with every step as she tried to detect any signs of danger approaching her. Her mind flashed to the purple liquid goopy monstrosity that had started chasing her, wondering if something like it was lurking close once more.  
>Connie's ears perked up after a half hour of walking around tense and on guard. In the distance, she could hear the sound of waves hitting the shoreline, faint but still distinct. Her heart leapt with joy at the sound. She no longer cared about moving silently, she wanted out of the forest and onto the shoreline now. Her legs strained with every step, twigs snapped under her feet, fallen dead grey leaves crunched under her feet and flew into the air, her hair started to raise from the flow of the air rushing past her body, swinging to the left and to the right as she dodged trees. Her body was a blur of brown and blue as she moved through the forest, the sounds of the coastline growing louder with every step.   
>Finally, Connie could see the yellow sea through the trees, picking up the pace once more as she pushed herself into a faster sprint, eager to get out of the forest and onto the sand. Her body soared as she leapt out of the trees, her feet skidding along the blue sand as she landed upon the shoreline, marks left in the beach from her heels digging in as she slid away from the forest's edge. Connie spun herself around quickly, gritting her teeth as she gripped her sword tightly, scanning the forest for any signs that something had been following her, her body ready to spring into action if she needed to.   
>Connie stood ready to move for fifteen minutes before her body started to relax. She let out a sigh of relief that she hadn't been followed after all, before turning her attention to her other surroundings. Above the red trunked trees topped with pink stripped purple leaves, the orange alien sky hung overhead, the large red sun in the sky already starting to sink past the treeline, the sky starting to shift from orange into shades of blue, purple, green, and yellow. She knew it would be dark in another few hours, she needed to move fast to get as far up the shore as she could.   
>Connie took off sprinting once more, her feet sinking into the sand as she moves towards the large white mountain range in the distance, now easily visible as it towered over the treetops. Her limbs were beginning to ache, but she pushed through her soreness. She knew she couldn't camp on the exposed beach, she needed something, anything, to use as a basis for a camp, to heat up more of the meat she had, to sample the yellow leaves she had gathered to see how they tasted, and to check the condition of her bags and her food.   
>The alien sky started growing darker overhead as Connie kept sprinting along the beach, looking for a suitable spot to camp, the blues, purples, greens, and yellows fading into a dark sky. Worry started growing within Connie once more as her eyes scanned the shore and the trees, her thoughts turning to what she would do if she couldn't find suitable covering. " I could dig in the sand if I have to, I still have my sharpened bones to set up a perimeter defense. I really don't like the thought of being that exposed, maybe setting up a line of defense in the forest is the better move? Ugh, I'd be facing this problem no matter which way I went though. C'mon, think Connie, it's getting darker."  
>Connie could feel herself slowing down as the sky continued to darken above her. Then, her eyes widened, her heart leaping for joy as she spotted a large mass in the distance. Connie couldn't be sure yet, the darkness making it hard to see, but it looked like a large tree trunk had crashed onto the beach.   
>As Connie drew closer, her suspicions were confirmed, the shape and the color of the mass she had seen coming into clear view. Before her laid a large green tree trunk, parts of it had rotted away, revealing a hollow interior. Connie looked towards the treeline of the forest, seeing no gaps or stumps near the edge. She briefly wondered where the large trunk had come from, perhaps something that had washed up on the shore? She shook her head. "Those thoughts can wait, gotta secure the site, then I can make myself a meal and settle in for the night.   
>Connie got to work immediately, jamming sharpened bones into the sand near the gaps in the giant hollowed out trunk, using vines to fasten a few to the edges of the holes as well, hoping it'd be enough to keep anything dangerous from getting too close. The sky overhead was now completely dark, millions of stars twinkling overhead, each one potentially representing a new solar system, galaxy, or planet. Connie couldn't help but take a moment to marvel at it, marvel at how different the stars were arranged on this world compared to Earth's night sky.   
>Connie smiled as she crawled into the hollow tree trunk. She pulled a sizable piece off of one of the large yellow leaves and popped it into her mouth, chewing for a moment before her eyes started to water. She coughed as she spit it out and muttered to herself. "Spicy, very very spicy!" Connie made a dash out of the only hole that remained undefended and towards the yellow liquid sea, taking handfuls of the liquid and drinking it down, trying to flush out the spicy flavors from her mouth.   
>Slowly, the flavor of spice died down in her mouth, her tears stopped flowing down her face. Connie shook her head as she made her way back to her makeshift campsite, scolding herself. "I like spicy stuff, but that was too much. Everything on this planet so far is too intense in flavor. I need to be more careful from now on."  
>Connie let out a sigh as she built a fire on the beach a safe distance from her campsite. She ended up grabbing a very small piece of yellow leaf, a piece of green leaf, and a pink striped purple leaf to go with the slab of alien meat she had pulled out of her bag. She took a brief moment to examine the remaining meat, surprised it was holding up so well, no signs of decay yet, no strange smells coming from it. She took great satisfaction in her makeshift meal, the small bit of yellow leaf giving the sweet and sour flavors a nice additional kick.   
>Connie made sure the fire was completely extinguished under the sand before she crawled back into the hollowed tree trunk, setting the last of her sharpened bones at the entrance before crawling into the middle of the large green tree remains and curling up. She found herself longing for a blanket as she felt the chill of the night air blowing through her shelter. "I'll do something about it tomorrow. Maybe I can find more giant flowers near the edge of the forest and make a blanket from the leaves." Connie muttered to herself as her eyes closed and she drifted off to sleep. She was one day closer to her end goals of survival.


	9. Waking from the first light of the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sun rises on the alien world, Connie wakes up to start another day of her survival adventure.

>Morning rose on the alien planet, the light filtering in to Connie's makeshift shelter within the large hollowed out tree truck. The light touched her face gently as it rose high enough in the sky, the sky once more returning to it's normal orange hue. Connie yawned as she stirred from her sleep, the light coaxing her out of her rest.   
>Connie stretched her limbs as she yawned, her body gearing up for another day on the alien world. She let out a sigh as she stood up and looked at the openings in her shelter. Her stomach rumbled in protest as she started moving towards one of the openings with the intent of gathering the sharpened bones that were lodged in the ground and tied around the openings with vines.   
>Connie whispered out to herself as she kept walking. "I'll eat in a minute, I need a safe way out to make a fire on the beach. Then I'll cook a meal for myself."   
>Connie worked quickly to untie the bones and pull them from the ground, eager to get a meal in her stomach. It took her fifteen minutes of work before she had all the bones around one of the entrances removed, piled neatly inside the giant log. With a safe way out established, she turned her attention to her leaf bag, sitting where she had left it the prior night.   
>Connie licked her lips as she made her way over to her leaf bag, digging through it and pulling out her fire starting stick, a few other sticks to keep the fire going, a few pieces of alien meat, and a few more leaves of various colors, careful not to pull too much off the yellow leaves. The last thing she grabbed was her sword, a way to cook the meat safely and defend herself if she needed to.   
>Supplies in hand, Connie exited her shelter, started a fire near the liquid lapping at the shoreline, dug a small hole for the liquid to fill up as it hit the shore, and made herself a meal, using the leaves once more to season the alien meat, pausing occasionally to grab a handful of liquid from the hole she had dug.   
>Despite not using much of the yellow leaf, Connie still found the meal to be spicier than she'd like. She made a mental note to herself that the yellow leaves might be better used as materials to cover herself up with, rather than using them for boiling liquids or wrapping meat in. She would have to test and see if any of the spice on the leaves was capable of rubbing off onto the body later.  
>It took an hour for Connie to prepare and eat her meal. When she was finished, she carefully pushed the fire into the hole she dug to catch liquid in with her sword, giving the wood a moment to smoke and steam before she retrieved it. Smiling widely, she picked up the wood and started to break up the rest of her makeshift campsite.   
>Connie found it easier to take the campsite apart than it had been to put it together. Whether it was because she was better rested, or because it was easier to take something apart than put it together, she wasn't sure, but it didn't matter to her. It only took her twenty minutes to gather the bones and vines she had used in her makeshift defenses together within the large hollowed tree trunk.  
>Connie quickly sorted the materials back out and stashed them away in their proper compartments before slinging her brown bag and her leaf bag back onto her back. Sword in hand, she left the hollowed tree truck resting upon the beach, ready to continue exploring the alien world.   
>Connie looked up the shoreline towards the white mountains before letting out a sigh. As much as she wanted to keep traveling the beach, she knew she needed more supplies if she was going to make herself a blanket. Her night on the beach had been colder than her rest in the cave or in the forest, and she knew she needed to be prepared in case it was a sign that temperatures were shifting on the world.   
>With the goal of searching for more plant supplies in mind, Connie stepped off the blue sandy shore and back towards the edge of the forest, stepping in a short distance, keeping the shoreline in sight while still having a good view into the forest proper. She wanted to be as close to the coast as possible, in case she needed to get out into the open quickly.   
>Connie still felt uneasy as she walked through the forest. Even if she was a short distance in, and the sound of the yellow ocean lapping at the blue shoreline was still sounding loudly at her left ear, she still didn't like how quiet the forest was. It was noisier than it had been the previous day, animals were chattering, leaves were rustling, and in the distance she could hear something that sounded like a bird's song back on Earth, but she still felt like it wasn't enough noise.  
>"Can't let yourself get unnerved." Connie whispered to herself as she continued to weave through the edge of the jungle, keeping her eyes out for anything she could use and for any motions that would give away something large coming her way.   
>It took her an hour before she found the first thing she could use, some thick orange vines hanging from a red tree. The trunk of the tree was broken, the tree itself toppled over, the top of the tree resting on another nearby red tree trunk, the limbs in the top of the toppled tree tangled within the lowest hanging limbs of the tree still standing. Connie could see sighs that the dead tree was starting to decay, whatever had caused it to fall was long gone.   
>Holding a bundle of orange vines in her left hand, Connie gave the mass a quick cut with her sword, smiling as the orange vines were severed from the decaying tree mass. She quickly stuffed them into her green leaf bag before moving on.   
>The next thing she encountered was a large black flower stripped with thin lines of red. Around the base were several large grey leaves. Connie let out a sigh as she approached the new plant, tearing off a very small tip from one of the six grey leaves before popping it into her mouth, running her tongue along it carefully to taste the flavor. Much to her surprise, she found the flavor of the leaf reminded her of garlic and onions mixed together back home, the flavor itself not overwhelming at all.   
>"Well that's a first, I might be able to use these for cooking and wrapping over covering." Connie thought to herself as she worked quickly to sever the leaves from around the base of the red stripped black flower, each leaf around a quarter of her body size, folding them up carefully before stuffing them into a compartment on her brown bag.  
>It took her another hour before she spotted the next flower, a large pink bulb still closed, surrounded by several larger blue leaves. It was a little deeper into the forest than Connie was hoping to go, but with how rare the large flowers were, she couldn't let the opportunity pass. The shoreline faded from view as Connie made her way towards the pink flower.   
>Connie craned her head up as she looked the plant over, the bulb itself was three times her size, the leaves looked to be her height in length. Once more, Connie pulled a little piece off of one of the leaves and popped it into her mouth, giving it a tentative chew as she analyzed the flavors. She hummed to herself in satisfaction as she tasted the strong flavors coming from the leaf. "Strawberry mixed with blueberry and a hint of ginger. Very strong, less is more with these leaves. I can sacrifice a few of these for a blanket." Connie whispered out as she cut the ten leaves away from the base of the large bulb, carefully rolling each one up before stuffing them into her large green leaf bag.  
>As she started to walk away from the pink bulb, a sudden snapping sound behind her caused Connie's body to tense up. She cursed in her mind as she turned slowly around towards the direction of the noise, her eyes scanning the forest frantically. She couldn't see any movement, but she had heard something crack, she knew something was out there, and possibly trying to hunt her.   
>Another crack sounding from above caused Connie to shoot her head upwards. Pink stripped purple leaves fell to the ground, twirling in the air as Connie's eyes widened at the sight. In the tree branches above her perched a large purple creature, its body vaguely resembling an Earth panther, with key differences. Its body was build far thicker than a normal Earth cat, eight legs sprouted from its body, four on each side. The fur on each limb ended near the tips of its limbs, ending in large white spikes instead of paws, a central large spike surrounded by four smaller spikes. Upon its back, several large spines stuck out, reminding Connie of a porcupine's quills. At the base of its rear, a long tail wrapped around a tree limb, gripping it firming like a monkey's tail would. Upon its head, four large eyes sat on its face, two in the center, with two sticking on the sides of its head, giving the creature a wide view of its surroundings.   
>Connie only had a moment to steel herself before the creature lunged at her from the trees, spikes extended towards her, its mouth opening up revealing two rows of red fangs within, drool flowing from the predator's maw as it anticipated its next kill and meal. Connie managed to leap back far enough to avoid the creature's ambush.   
>The purple alien beast looked around in confusion before it spotted Connie once more, letting out a growl of annoyance before it started running towards her, its legs flinging dirt up as it moved with great speed. Connie knew there was no way she was outrunning the beast. She had to fight it off, to deter it from attacking her further, or to kill it if it couldn't take a hint.   
>Connie let out her own battle cry as she sprung to the side, watching the creature slide to a stop as it realized it had once more missed its target, the creature's body colliding with a nearby red tree, some of its spines on its back sinking into the tree, a loud cracking sound echoing through the woods as the wood started to splinter from the impact. A few of the creature's long purple spines popped off its body and remained stuck in the wood as it tried to get itself unstuck.   
>Connie took the opportunity to rush forward, sword in her hand. She swung her blade hard at one of the creature's left legs, her blade slicing through the alien's flesh as if it was hot butter. The alien creature let out a scream of pain as its tail started moving towards Connie.   
>The creature's tail was met with another slice from Connie's sword, falling to the ground and coaxing another scream from the alien beast. The creature finally pulled itself free, turning to face Connie with a snarl, rage in its eyes as it once more charged towards the girl.   
>Connie leapt a moment too late, not quite dodging the full blow. She felt part of the creature's body connect with her left leg, a searing pain shooting through her as she tumbled on the ground from her rough landing. Once more, the creature ended up crashing into a tree, another loud crack echoing through the woods as more of its spines dug into the red tree trunk.   
>Connie flinched as she stood to her feet again, another sharp pain shooting from her left leg as she took a step. "Gonna have to check that later, focus through the pain Connie!" she thought to herself as she rushed towards the beast again. This time, she swung at the beast's right side, cleaving through two more legs then sinking her blade into the beast's side for good measure. The creature once more cried out in pain as purple blood was flowing freely from the beast's wounds now, soaking into the forest floor.   
>The creature let out one last cry of agony as it pulled free from the tree trunk, leaving behind another cluster of purple spines in the trunk. It took one last look at the girl before it started to back away from her, skittering quickly on its five remaining limbs, a trail of blood marking its path of retreat.   
>Connie stood vigilant for a moment, preparing itself for a surprise attack. After five minutes passed, she was certain the creature had retreated for now. The pain in her leg became noticeable as her body started to relax, She sighed as she slumped down to the forest floor and started to examine her leg.   
>Connie flinched as she saw the gash in her leg, right below her knee, blood tricking down her leg at a steady pace.   
>"Well, it could have been worse." Connie muttered to herself before she pulled the bags off of her back and started digging for supplies, pulling out a length of yellow vines and one of the blue leaves she had collected earlier, using her sword to cut it into a few strips, wrapping one around her wound and tying it tight with the vine.   
>Connie stood back up slowly as she tested the leg. It still hurt a little to stand and move, but the flow of blood had stopped and the wound was covered. "I should get back to the shoreline as quickly as possible, clean the wound a little and get back into a more open area to make it harder to be ambushed. Then again, I could use more supplies, I barely collected anything."  
>Connie sighed as she ran the choices through her head. She knew she had to clean the wound properly soon, there was no telling what the beast that attacked her could have been carrying. On the other hand, her attacker had left behind some nice goodies, a few limbs and spines, things it'd be a shame to leave behind. She knew she had to choose quickly, before something else potentially found her. Every seconded mattered on the alien world.


	10. The course to treating the wound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie finishes gathering supplies in the jungle and returns to the ocean to better treat her wound.

>After a few moments to think, Connie made her choice. The first thing she did was gather the limbs she had cut off with her sword. She grimaces slightly as she felt the course hairs of the fur in her touch, the feeling reminding her of steel wool used to scrub pots and pans more than it reminded her of the fur of Lion back on Earth. Still, the limbs had meat, bones, and spikes, all things she could use one way or another.   
>The next thing Connie turned her attention towards were the spines lodged in the trees. She noted that the exposed edges were smooth, allowing her to conclude their detachment was a natural trait of the beast she had encountered, rather than something that had caused the beast pain. She wasn't sure how she felt about a predator with detachable spines, for such an evolution to occur, it meant there was likely something larger that hunted the alien that just tried to hunt her.   
>Connie shuddered as she pushed that thought aside, she couldn't afford to stop and really think about it. Her hands wrapped around one of the spines stuck in the tree as she focused on the task at hand. Connie gave the spine a hard tug with both hands, grunting and gritting her teeth as her body strained to pull the spine free.   
>Connie pulled as hard as she could, but after three minutes of tugging on a spine, she released it and let out a long sigh, whispering out in disappointment. "Yep, those things aren't going anywhere. I hate letting things go to waste, but it's not worth the time trying to cut each one out of the trees. Gotta get my cut cleaned and move on."  
>Connie gazed at the spines lodged in the red tree trunks one more time before leaving, sword in hand and bags on her back. Her movement was slowed down significantly as she made her way back to the shore, following the sounds of the waves lapping at the shore. She didn't want to push herself too hard and risk tearing the wound open winder before she got it properly cleaned.  
>It took her fifteen minutes before she arrived at the shore once more, to see the lovely yellow waves lapping at the blue sand once again. Connie's leg was still very sore, from the wound and the walk back to the beach, but she knew she had to keep going. She paused briefly to dig a grey stone out of the sands before she crouched down near the waves on the beach.   
>Connie worked diligently, pulling the stuff she needed to make a fire out of her bag alongside a large blue leaf from her bag. She got to work rubbing the sticks together to start a fire, smiling as the friction created embers that once more flared into a lovely flame. She tossed the grey rock into the fire before turning her attention to the yellow liquid sea, gathering a sizable amount in the large blue leaf before smiling in satisfaction, digging a small patch out in the sand to place the leaf in near the fire and allow it to keep hold of the liquid.   
>Connie grimaces as she prepared herself for the next step, untying the yellow vine from around the blue leaf strip she had tied tight around her wound. She gritted her teeth as she pulled the leaf free, prepared to get a better look at it. Much to her relief, she found the flow of blood from her wound had stopped, and no discoloration of the wound had occurred in the time it took her to get to the beach. She let out a sigh of relief as she discarded the strip of blue leaf and dug another out of her bag.  
>Connie looked over at the fire wearily. The rock had been sitting in the fire for three minutes now. With a sigh, she gripped her sword in hand and used it to knock the rock out of the fire and into the leaf container with liquid she had prepared. Steam billowed from the leaf and the liquid as Connie watched it with baited breath, hoping the rock wasn't too hot for the liquid and leaf to handle.   
>A few more minutes passed, Connie's tension eased up as the steam started dying down a little, but still rising from the liquid at a decent pace. She stuck a strip of blue leaf within the liquid. She had lucked out the first time in a pinch, but this time, she would be sure her makeshift bandage would be as sterile as possible.   
>The steam died down further as the blue leaf stripped sat in the liquid for a few minutes. Connie hummed in satisfaction as she tentatively tested the liquid with one of her pinky fingers, finding it warm to the touch, but not hot enough to scald her anymore. She pulled the strip out of the liquid and set it on her left leg close to the wound, Her next step was to remove the grey rock from the larger leaf, placing it in her bag for later use in boiling liquids, something she scolded herself for not thinking of back in the cave the first time she did it.   
>Steeling her nerves, Connie gently lifted the large blue leaf from the shallow hole she had dug and moved it over her left leg, close to her wound. She grimaces as she poured the hot liquid onto the gash, the heat sending a stinging sensation through her leg as the liquid made contact. Still, she knew it had to be done, she couldn't risk an infection.   
>Connie stopped pouring when there was only a little liquid remaining on the leaf. She sat the leaf next to her as she started scooping the liquid in her hands and using it to rub the edges of the wound, wanting to be sure as many foreign particles were removed from her flesh as possible. She flinched a little as she cleaned, small amounts of pain and stinging shooting through her leg from the actions of treating the wound. Still, she gritted her teeth and got the task done.  
>With the wound as clean as best as she could get it, Connie quickly wrapped the strip of blue leaf around the wound, making sure the flesh of her wound was pulled together as much as possible to help make the healing process faster. Connie proceeded to reuse the yellow vines she had tied around the first bindings, retying the vines tightly around the strip.  
>With the bandaging in place, Connie turned her attention back to the fire. "Well, I've got one lit, may as well sample the new alien's meat and have a meal now." She thought to herself. Her stomach rumbled a moment later, further confirming Connie's decision.   
>Connie smiled as she cut a small piece of meat from one of the purple alien legs, skewering it on the tip of her sword before sticking the piece in the fire. She made a note at how similar the color of the meat was to the fur, the meat only a hue or two darker than the fur. Slowly, the purple shifted into a still darker shade within the flames.   
>Connie let the piece cook for five minutes before pulling it out of the fire and letting it cool off. She blew on the steaming piece of meat a little before taking a bite from her salvaged price.  
>As she chewed the meat, Connie began to gag as the flavor flowed into her mouth. It was unlike anything she had ever tasted before. She spit the piece of meat out and wretched in disgust. "Ugh, that was the foulest, most repugnant piece of food I've ever stuck in my mouth! There's no way I'm eating that again if I can help it!"  
>Connie let out a sigh as she set the rest of the alien limb aside. She didn't want the meat to go to waste, but with the terrible flavor it possessed, she knew she didn't want to consume it herself. "Perhaps as bait for future hunting." Connie mused to herself as she dug through her green leaf bag for the meat from her previous kill.   
>Connie got to work preparing a meal from the slabs of meat she pulled from her reserves, seasoning them with her previously gathered leaves as well as throwing bits of the grey and blue ones in for good measure. This time, she decided to boil it all in the large blue leaf she had just used to boil liquid in to clean her wound, filling it once more with yellow liquid from the planet's ocean and wondering if she could get a stew going, or at least have a unique drink to slake her thirst as she chewed on the meat. Once more, she placed the grey rock into the fire and let it sit for a few minutes before knocking it into the liquid with the meat sitting firmly at the bottom, the bits of leaves floating in the liquid at the surface.  
>Connie let the rock sit in the liquid for a few minutes, steam once more wafting through the air. Connie could smell the aroma of the meat and leaves stewing, could smell the fruity flavors mingling with the garlic and onion scent from the grey leaf bits and a faint aroma of spiciness from the bits of yellow leaves. Her mouth salivated as she took the scents in.   
>Connie removed the rock and the piece of meat from the liquid, once more placing the grey rock within her brown bag for future use. She sipped at the yellow liquid in the blue leaf as she chewed on the blue alien meat, the flavors of the ingredients had blended together decently well, except the strawberry, blueberry, and ginger flavors from the blue leaves were stronger than the rest. Connie made a mental note not to add bits of the leaves she used to hold liquid in into future mixes to avoid one set of flavors overpowering the rest in the future.  
>With her meal done, Connie turned her attention back to the purple alien limbs with the foul tasting meat. She let out a deep sigh before she used her sword to cut several large chunks away from the bones of the limb, setting the pieces on top of a large yellow leaf as she worked.  
>Connie wasn't going to bother saving every little scrap from the limbs, and the bones she encountered were far too easy to cut through with her sword for her liking. "Still, maybe I can use the meat and the spikes at the tip of the limbs for fishing or baiting traps." Connie mused to herself as she kept cutting, tossing the bits of limbs into the ocean she wasn't saving as she worked.   
>It took her fifteen minutes of work, but she managed to get a decent pile of bait meat accumulated, and the spike clusters separated from the ends of the leaves. Connie found the spikes themselves to be far tougher than the bones of the creature had been. "Probably to ensure they puncture the hide of whatever it hunted." Connie grumbled to herself as she wrapped up the bait meat in the large yellow leaf and stuffed it and the spike clusters in her green leaf bag.   
>Connie put the fire she had made out before she stood up tentatively, testing her injured leg out. It still hurt to stand on, but the pain wasn't as bad as it had been before. She smiled as she gathered up her things, stuffed the salvageable parts of the wood back into her green leaf bag, put her bags back on her back, grabbed her sword, and resumed making her way up the coastline.   
>Despite her movements being slowed down by an injury, Connie's spirits were higher than they had been. She had fought an alien predator and excelled, got a few new supplies, and had plans to use the stuff she couldn't consume herself. For her third day on the alien world, she felt she was doing great. She knew, however, that she still had a long way to go and survive if she wanted to reach the white mountains in the distance and survive the rest of her time on the planet.


	11. Searching for a suitable campsite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With her leg injured and her movement speed slowed, Connie decides to start looking for a place to settle down and rest for a few days to give herself time to heal a little.

>Pain started to shoot through Connie's leg more intensely as she kept walking slowly up the sandy blue shore. She gritted her teeth as she kept forcing herself forward. She knew in her head that, with the pain shooting through her leg, she needed to find somewhere safe enough to set up a camp to give her wound a few days to heal.   
>Connie looked behind her, briefly considering going back for the giant hollowed out green tree trunk on the beach, before shaking the idea out of her head. "No, I need to keep going forward. There has to be somewhere up ahead I can use to create a shelter."   
>Connie's left leg continued to throb in pain as she continued to move slowly up the beach. Sweat beaded off of her forehead and hands as she walked, her hands grasping her sword tightly, her eyes intently scanning the forest for any signs of movement. She couldn't afford to be caught off guard in her current state, she knew her decreased mobility would hinder her in a fight and make her more vulnerable and more likely to get further injuries.   
>Connie caught sight of movement on the beach in the corner of her eye, turning her attention towards the beach quickly and readying herself to fight. She let out a light gasp of wonder as she saw what had moved to catch her attention.   
>The creature was very small in size, about the size of Connie's foot. Its blue hide blended in well with the sand, if it hadn't moved, Connie might never have seen it. Its body was perfectly round, dozens of thin legs sticking out of its body all around its form. Four tall eye stalks twitches a few centimeters away from its body, all four fixated on Connie as it started to scuttle towards the yellow waves.   
>The creature she had spotted was only the first of many like it she spotted. Connie noted the creatures were becoming more numerous as she kept limping her way up the beach, first it was one, then two, then five, then a dozen. Soon, entire sections of beach were shifting as she approached, moving quickly towards the sea.   
>Connie couldn't help but wonder what it was that was making the creatures so afraid of her. "Is it my size? The sound of my movement? My scent? The scent of something I'm carrying? I hope whatever it is doesn't draw the attention of a predator."  
>It took an hour of walking before the creatures stopped moving from the beach ahead of Connie. Whatever they were, she had passed their main spot of resting. Connie once more turned her attention towards the jungle, and started taking notice of the divide between the blue sandy shore and the sections of grass between the shore and the jungle, the grass in this area a light orange hue. The land itself was starting to rise into a shallow slope. Connie could see the distance between the grass and the sandy shore growing further apart in the distance as the shoreline started to create steep curves.   
>Connie let out a sigh as she kept walking, picking up her pace a little as she noticed the sun was inching closer to the tree line. A brief calculation in her head told her she had three hours to go before the sky started changing color again.   
>Thoughts passed through Connie's mind as she kept walking, approaching a large curve in the cost, the land next to her starting to rise over her head in height. "Have I really been out for so long today? Or does this planet have a fast day cycle? I guess I did spend a considerable amount of time looking carefully for supplies and treating my wound, gathering up my stuff from where I had camped, and fighting whatever that thing was."  
>A brief stumble sent a pain shooting through Connie's leg as she struggled to regain her balance. Connie cursed out as she looked down at her feet, to see what she tripped on, grumbling out in annoyance as she saw a translucent brown strip wrapped around her foot and right leg, parts of it still buried in the beach next to her. Connie tugged at the plant hard for a few minutes before it popped free of the sand.   
>As Connie untangled herself from the plant, she remarked on how similar it was to Earth's seaweed. The edges were squarer and more jagged, the texture was scratchy instead of smooth, but the singular stalk running through the middle of it was a perfect reminder of the Earth plant.   
>Connie smiled as she gave the alien seaweed a few tugs in her hands. "These stalks are remarkably sturdy yet flexible. I bet I could turn them into some study fishing line, if I could find more!" she thought to herself as she stuffed the plant into her bag. She smiled as she glanced up the shoreline and around the curve, spotting a few more pieces of the plant sticking up from the shore.   
>To avoid tripping on them and to not let them go to waste, Connie took a few moments to harvest the pieces of brown seaweed in her path, giving each a few good yanks before they broke free of the sand. She only pulled the strands directly in her path, not wanting to linger too long in one spot when she still needed to find a shelter. She ended up with seven lengths of the alien seaweed before she moved out of the area they were in.   
>The sky started shifting colors over Connie's head, changing from pure orange to a mix of orange, yellow, and blue. Connie let out a sigh as she picked up her pace as much as she could, the pain in her leg intensifying at her quicker pace. She couldn't afford to move slow any longer though. With night a few hours away, she needed to find something to use as a start of her shelter, or she needed to start setting something up herself.   
>Another half hour of walking passed. Connie was about ready to give up on walking for the day to start setting up some semblance of shelter for herself, when she noticed a spot ahead of her that looked like something had dug into the natural raise in the landscape. The divide between the beach and the forest now towered over Connie, five times her height, a difficult climb even in the best conditions, next to impossible with her leg still injured.  
>Connie found herself rushing towards the opening in the side of the landscape, her heart racing with the possibilities as she once more clutched her sword tightly. She knew that if there was a cave or a hole dug into the dirt, there might be something living in there. She slows herself down as she approaches the hole, A natural or a dug hole meant something could be living inside of it.  
>Connie gritted her teeth as she drew closer, the small opening coming into a clearer view. She tentatively looked around, straining her eyes for any signs of movement within and seeing none. Taking a deep breath and steeling her nerves, she knocked her sword against a rock lodged in the wall of the dirt opening and shouted out. "Graaaahhhhhh!" If something was in there, there's no way it'd ignore her ruckus outside its den. Connie took a few steps back and stood at the ready.   
>A few moments of silence passed, with no sounds, no movement, nothing coming from inside the opening. Connie let out a huge sigh of relief as the tension left her body and she made her way into the cave. She didn't make it in far before she found the remains of an alien animal, bits of green fur scattered around and covered in dust, small fragments of bones dusty and laying in piles.   
>"It looks like this place has been vacant for some time." Connie mused to herself. "I wonder if it was a predator or prey that used to live here? If it was prey, I bet the bones belonged to them. If it was a predator that lived here......I hope whatever drove it away doesn't come back. Hopefully it followed the migration patters of its meals instead of being driven away."  
>Connie shook herself out of her musings. If she wanted to get set up before nightfall, she needed to get to work now. The first thing she did was pull the sharpened bones out of her leaf bag and establish a perimeter, sticking the bones into the sand at different angles and different distances from each other. She set a few aside as she worked, a different intention for them in mind.  
>With the lines of sharpened bone spikes in place, she started pulling out the largest pieces of wood she had left and the longest vines she had, a mix of gold and orange, the green vines too short for her purposes. She got to work on making a makeshift covering for the entrance of the dug out spot she was staying in, sticking sharpened bones within the door's structure, hoping that the spiky door would deter anything that made it past the line of sharpened bones.   
>Connie made a note that her supplies of wood were running low once she finished with her door. She would have to hope she could scavenge driftwood from the beach, or find another source to replenish her kindling supplies. She didn't relish the thought of trying to scale the raised up portion of land, or taking the long walk to get back to a shallower part of the land, but she knew she'd have to if she couldn't find any driftwood. Lighting a fire to cook and heat food was crucial to her survival.   
>She let out an especially long sigh as she looked at the stick she'd been using to start fire. Holes were cut into the wood at several spots now, the surface of the stick scorched around each and every hole. Connie knew she'd need to replace it soon as well, eyeing the last of the largest limbs, the one she had set aside instead of putting it into the door like the others. "Just another reason to find more wood soon. Man, I hate that I got hurt, it's really putting me in a bind here." she whispered to herself in annoyance.   
>With the basis of her shelter in place, the sky outside was almost completely dark. Connie gathered the wood back into her bag and made her way through the bones she had set up and towards the yellow ocean. There next to the waves, she lit a fire, using her wood as sparingly as she could now that she knew she was starting to run short.   
>Connie was feeling too tired to wait for the meat to stew again, instead opting for a simple skewering of the blue alien meat on her sword and letting it warm up for a moment. She stuck to a simple seasoning this time, using only bits of grey leaves within the meat, resulting in a blend of sweet flavors mixed with the onion and garlic flavors from the leaf bits. She hummed in satisfaction as she enjoyed her pieces of meat, filling her stomach with protein.  
>Her meal finished, Connie pulled out the seven lengths of brown seaweed she had picked up, setting two back in the bag. She needed to save something for fishing line in case she needed it.   
>By the light of the fire, Connie stripped the other pieces of seaweed as carefully as she could, preserving the stalks while setting the bits of brown vegetation aside on the remains of a grey leaf. "I'll sample the seaweed tomorrow and see what it tastes like." Connie resolved in her head as she worked. She wasn't in the mood to stop her task now, she wanted to wrap the day up as soon as she could.   
>With the bits of vegetation removed from the five long seaweed stalks, Connie pulled out many of the larger leaves, three yellow, one grey, and five blue. Using the long stalks of seaweed and more strands of her own hair twisted together tightly, she weaved the leaves together as tight as she dared, forming a large blanket of natural vegetation for herself. It was rough work, but it would be suitable for her needs.   
>Smiling in satisfaction, Connie threw the blanket over her shoulder before she put out her fire and salvaged as much of the wood as she could. She made her way back around the sharpened bones and back towards the cave's entrance.   
>She worked quickly to place her large makeshift door in place, wedging it gently and tightly into the cave's opening. Connie then moved as far back as she could and as far over from the line of sight as she could manage. There, she removed her bags from her back, set them on the ground, curled up, used her bags as pillows, and wrapped her leaf blanket around her. She could still feel pain ebbing in her leg from her still healing wound, but the pain sood faded, allowing her to rest. She had herself a nice little shelter, and she'd worry about the finer details when she woke up from her rest.


	12. A new morning dawns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie wakes up from a night's sleep on the alien world, and begins to address some of the issues on her mind from last night.

>The night on the alien world passed by without incident, the sound of the waves helping Connie rest peacefully through the night. She found herself awakening to the sound of something crying out in the distance, an almost mournful tone in the voice of whatever animal was howling.   
>Grumbling, Connie rubbed her eyes as she gently pushed the leaf blanket off of her body, yawning as she grabbed her sword and slowly shambled towards the door at the mouth of the cave. She could see a very dim light filtering through the gaps in the wood and bones of the door into the cave proper.   
>She set her sword aside for a moment as she grabbed a hold of the door and gave it a few gentle tugs, taking a few stumbling steps back as the door pulled free of the cave's opening.   
>Connie smiled as she gazed out of the opening of her campsite. The sun was beginning to rise on the alien world, paining the sky in shades of green, blue, yellow, and orange. The sharpened bones she had set up around her were mostly intact. Connie frowned a bit as she saw the bones at the very edge were tilted slightly, a few stained with a green fluid. She cautiously approached the spikes that were shifted, sword in hand. In the sand, Connie could make out the faintest remains of footprint outlines, not much bigger than her own feet, but clawed in nature, shaped with three toes at the front and one at the back. The footprints were too faded to tell if they belonged to a predator or something more docile.   
>"Well, at least whatever it was gave up and the barrier worked, but I hate something tried to get through at all. Can't move camp now, there's no telling how far it'd be until I found a new spot." Connie muttered to herself before she weaved back through the line of bones and back towards the cave.   
>Connie proceeded to gather her bags up and placed them on her back. She took a moment to fold the leaf blanket up and placed it gently in her leaf bag. Her first task of the day would be to eat breakfast, then she'd worry about other things.  
>She made her way back out onto the sand and through her barrier of sharpened bones, once more setting up near the waves of the beach to cook herself a meal. She dug a shallow hole to allow the sweet yellow liquid of the ocean to fill it for something to drink with her meal. She pulled out a few pieces of the blue alien meat she had cooked, sighing as she looked them over, then back at the large portion of meat she still had. The meat still looked fine for consumption, but Connie knew it'd only last one more day past the day she was on at the most before it'd be too risky to eat.   
>Connie pushed those thoughts aside as she lit a fire with the alien wood and skewered the meat on her sword, sticking it into the flames to allow it to heat up a little, pulling the meat and blade from the fire after a few minutes, letting it cool off before she ate her fill, pausing every few bites to sip on the sweet yellow liquid of the ocean that gathered in the hole she dug as the waves lapped at the shore. She didn't bother seasoning the meat, she needed to preserve the remaining leaves in case she needed something to eat in between kills or fishing.  
>With her stomach filled, Connie sighed as she put the fire out, cut off the salvageable parts of wood, then stuffed it back in her bag. She looked down the shoreline in the direction she came from, knowing she could cut a lot of wood off the large log if she made it back to it. The faded footprints going that direction made her weary to act on that plan however, it was guaranteed wood, but what if whatever had tried getting to her in the night was dangerous and had hidden somewhere in that direction.   
>Connie thought for a moment before she started heading up the shore, towards unexplored portions of the beach. The unknown came with its own risks, but it also came with the benefit of seeing more of the world and knowing what paths lied ahead of her when her leg got well enough to travel further away from her camp.  
>Stealing her nerves, Connie made her way up the blue sandy shore. The alien sun was higher in the sky, the greens and blues fading away and leaving behind the yellows and oranges. Connie moved only as fast as she dared to, she didn't want to push her leg too hard while she was still healing up. Her attention shifted between the shoreline and the towering wall of alien soil to her right.   
>As she kept walking, she noticed the height of the divide between the shore and the orange grass at the top of the land was shrinking back down. Looking ahead, she noted the landscape continued to lower in front of her, to what seemed like a manageable height for her to hoist herself up The prospect made Connie excited, if she could get to the jungle within a short walk from her camp, she could gather wood and set up traps in the dense forest.   
>Despite being clearly visible in the distance, it still took Connie almost an hour to reach a section she felt comfortable scaling. The soil to her right was only twice her height now, Looking ahead, she noticed the landscape started raising up again past the point she was at. If she was going to get to the jungle, it had to be from here.   
>Connie grunted and strained as she sunk her fingers into the soil of the shallow portion of the cliffside, her muscles straining as she pulled herself up, a dull pain shooting through her left leg with every push with it she had to do.  
>It took Connie a few minutes to hoist herself up, but as she crawled up onto the light orange grass, she smiled in satisfaction. Spread out before her was the alien forest, most of the tree trunks standing tall and red before her.  
>Connie let out another sigh as she stood up. Part of her really wanted to explore the forest further, to find more large flowers to harvest the leaves from and more vines to gather, but the more sensible part of her mind kept her from going in. She knew if she got attacked in her injured state, she might come out of the conflict far worse than last time. It was with this thought that Connie decided on her course of action.  
>Connie moved towards the tree closest from where she had climbed up. Sword gripped firmly in hand, she began hacking away at the trunk of the red tree. She knew cutting a tree down would create a loud noise when it came down, but it was the fastest way to gather the tree limbs she needed without straying too far from where she had climbed up.   
>The sound of thunks and thwacks echoed in Connie's ears as she swung her sword at the tree, each blow cutting deep into the wood and removing a small portion of wood from the side closest to the cliff. Connie knew she needed to take enough away from the side closest to the cliff before she moved around to the other side of the tree, to ensure it fell away from her instead of towards her, many of the survival books she had read telling her the proper procedures and techniques.   
>Connie started breathing harder as two hours passed, her forehead covered in sweat and her clothes slightly damp around her armpits. She had finally taken enough out of the tree trunk to start cutting on the other side safely, a nice deep V cut into the side closest to the cliff. Now all she had to do was cut through to the point of the V and gravity would do the rest.  
>It took another half hour of cutting before a loud crack echoed from the tree. Connie smiled widely as she took a few steps back and to her right into the jungle, just to be on the safe side. The cracks continued to sound as Connie watched the tree start leaning towards the deeper cut she had made on the side facing away from the forest, her smile widening as the cracks grew louder before the tree finally started falling freely, landing with a loud thud as it connected with the orange grass, the top of the tree resting just short of the edge Connie had used to climb up.   
>From within the tree, a few colorful blurs darted out of the leaves and into the sky, a blur of motion and a chorus of panicked squawks. The creatures moved too fast for Connie to get a full look at them through the treetops, but she could make out blurs of purple, pink, and red, and could make out their thin long bodies in the distance as they quickly sped off. "Must have been this planet's equivalent of a bird. Wish I could have seen one clearer." Connie mused to herself as she started back towards the cliff side and towards the tree she had just brought down.   
>Connie got to work on cutting wood away from the tree, starting at the thinner limbs that ran up its trunk, sawing away at them with her blade and sticking the red limbs into her bag, pink striped purple leaves and all as she went up the right side of the fallen tree.   
>As she reached the top of the tree, she could feel the weight on her back from the limbs in the leaf bag. She decided not to mess with the top of the tree for now, having plenty of wood for her purposes for now. She could always come back to the fallen tree in the next few days if she really needed to.   
>With Connie's wood gathering finished, she carefully made her way around the top of the tree to the edge of the cliff, easing herself down the dirt as she climbed back down, moving faster than she did up. She could have jumped down safely, but she didn't want to land hard on her injured leg.   
>A thought ran through Connie's mind as she walked back towards her campsite. "I wonder if that seaweed is still on the shore? I didn't want to fool around with it last night, but gathering more of it might come in handy, for tying things together if nothing else." She ran her left hand along her now short hair. She had used a lot of her hair as makeshift binding already, she didn't want to cut the rest off if she could avoid it.   
>Connie paused briefly at her campsite, weaving through the bone spikes to the mouth of the opening she had set up camp in. She removed the leaf bag from her back, pink striped purple leaves clustered at the top as she set it down out of sight within the cave itself, feeling relieved as she felt the heavy weight of the tree limbs being removed from her back. "You might have overdone it with the tree limbs Connie, don't be so greedy next time." Connie scolded herself in her mind as she weaved back around the bone spikes, walking down the beach further to reach where the seaweed had been, and hopefully still was.   
>It took Connie forty-five minutes of walking before she came back to the spot she had picked up the seven pieces of brown seaweed previously. A smile crossed her face as she saw the bits of seaweed were still present further into the beach, and a few new pieces now rested on the beach where she had picked them up before.   
>Connie spent the next hour picking up the pieces of brown seaweed on the beach, stuffing them into the pockets of her brown bag with glee. When she had most of the pockets on her bag filled with seaweed, the area of beach in front of her was only cleared of a third of the vegetation.   
>Connie hummed happily as she picked one more piece of seaweed off the beach and washed it off in the planet's ocean. She tore off a small piece of the translucent brown vegetation and popped it into her mouth, giving it a little chew as she analyzed the flavor. "Odd, it has a faint flavor of cooked beef, mixed with.....tomato? At least it's not overly strong like some of the other plants on this planet." Connie mused to herself as she swallowed the piece of seaweed in her mouth and placed the rest of the strip in her bag as she walked back up the beach.   
>Her stomach gave off a low rumble as she kept walking back towards her campsite. "Doesn't seem like that much time has passed, but I guess walking, cutting, and gathering takes a long time. Gotta see what else I can do after another meal." Connie whispered to herself as she kept walking, a plan of action forming in her mind.   
>Connie knew she had to keep moving during the day, or the sensor in the communicator would trigger and send a message to Pearl, but she didn't want to simply walk back and forward up the beach, she'd get bored of that fast. She also didn't want to risk going back into the forest without a quick way down from the higher edge of the landscape without having to jump for it, in case she needed to make a quick escape.   
>A smile crossed Connie's face as she arrived back at the campsite, an idea coming to her of something she could try. She found herself excited by the notion, wondering if it'd even work, but first, she would focus on having another meal while she was back at camp.


	13. A trip to sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie takes steps to try and get out on the ocean of the alien world to try fishing.

>Connie enjoyed a meal of alien meat when she got back to her makeshift campsite, performing her usual steps of lighting a fire and making sure she had something to drink. After finishing her meal, she let out a satisfied sigh and turned her thoughts back to what she intended to do.  
>Her first step was taking a piece of wood she had used in her fire and tossing it into the ocean after cutting the burnt portions away. As usual, the burnt portions sank out of sight, but much to Connie's delight, the unscorched length of wood she had cut off of the burnt portion floated, bobbing and moving with the gentle waves of the yellow alien ocean.   
>With the knowledge that the wood could float, her goal was clear. She would build a raft to float out on, with the hopes of being able to fish some food up. The first thing she did was pull several lengths of vine out, a mix of orange and yellow, tying them together into a long length.  
>When she had the vine rope as long as she could get it while holding on to a few "just in case" vines, her next step was to tie one end of the length to something sturdy. She weaved the length of vine between some of the bone spikes she had set up before fastening it around an oddly shaped rock wedged into the beach near the opening of the cave she was using to rest in. She gave the vine a few test tugs, wanting to be sure it wouldn't snap or pull free if she needed to reel herself in quickly. Much to her delight, the vine rope stayed in place and remained durable and unbroken.   
>With the stability of the rope confirmed, Connie set it aside for a moment and went into the cave, grunting and straining as she drug the large bundle of wood and bones out of the cave's mouth. The door she made to cover the cave's entrance was large enough to serve as a raft by itself, but she could add to it if she needed more wood to keep herself afloat in the ocean on top of it.   
>Carefully, she started weaving the vine through the gaps of the door, wrapping and working to ensure the vine was tied as tight as she could get it and to ensure it was fastened around as much of the lower portion of the door as she could get it around and still have enough length to get a decent way out to sea.  
>With Connie's weaving done, she took a deep breath and headed out to the ocean. She first placed the door turned raft into the shallows of the alien sea, then gently climbed on top of it, sword and bags in tow. She breathed a sigh of relief as she pushed out to sea and found the impromptu raft supporting the extra weight and staying afloat. She smiled as she slowly let out lengths of the vine rope, allowing herself to drift away from the shore and into the sea proper.   
>As she drifted from the shoreline, she got to work on her fishing equipment. She started with a long piece of red wood from her bag, cutting away the straggling growths and leaves from it. Next, she removed the vegetation from around the stalk on the longest piece of seaweed she had gathered, tying the sturdy length around the piece of wood.  
>Carving a piece of bone into a hook took her longer than she expected, she had to be careful with the sword, she didn't want to cut herself. Eventually, she had a piece of smaller bone whittled down into a nice curve and a sharp point. She hoped when the time came, it'd do its job and trap something at the end of her line. Gently, she drilled a small hole in the base of the bone hook with her sword, and threaded the seaweed stalk through it, tying it tightly.  
>With the makeshift fishing rod prepared, Connie dug in her leaf bag, grimacing as she pulled the yellow leaf wrapped around the purple alien meat out. She still remembered how foul the meat had tasted to her. Still, she hoped something beneath the waves would like it, skewering a piece of the purple meat on her hook then dipping it into the ocean below the raft.   
>Connie sat patiently with her line in the waves, the raft drifting out as far as it could, the shoreline barely visible in the distance now. She had lost track of how long she had been waiting for a nibble, or any sign anything was moving below her. She sighed as she looked out at the yellow alien sea before her. "It really does stretch on, doesn't it? I can see why Pearl wanted to keep my search to just one island, hunting an entire planet for one piece of technology could take years." She thought to herself as she noticed the sun was starting to drift towards the shore she came from, towards the forest. She knew it'd be dark in another four or five hours, and hoped she could get some sign of life in the sea before she headed back.   
>Connie's heart leapt in joy as her hopes were answered. A tug came from her fishing rod and the line, still held firm in her hands. Connie smiled as she started pulling on the line with one hand and the rod with her other, trying to reel whatever it was in gently and without snapping her pole or line.   
>The struggle was brief, the critter at the end of the line tiring quickly, the tugs growing lighter as Connie reeled more of the line around her hand. She smiled as she pulled the end of the line out of the ocean. On the end of her hook sat an odd little critter, a bright green hue, its body long and slender, thrashing lightly at the end of the hook, six fins fixated at each side of its body flapping wildly in the air as Connie held her catch up triumphantly. She now knew she could fish for some food if she had to, which opened up her choices of how she could spend her days.   
>Connie watched as the critter slowly stopped moving entirely, using her sword to cut the hook out of its mouth from where it had lodged. Connie briefly considered fishing for another catch, but noticed the sun had set quite far over the horizon. It would be dark soon, she needed to get back.   
>Connie began gently pulling at the vine that connected her to the shore, She couldn't wait to get back and cook her catch up, and found herself excited to find out what else she could catch from beneath the waves. For now, she was content with what she had accomplished in the day. She had wood, more leaves to season food with, and a way to fish up more food if her meat supply spoiled. She was certain she could stay camped in one spot for a few days while her leg wound healed.


	14. Sampling the catch of the day, wrapping up the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie pulls her door turned raft back onto the beach and winds down for the day.

>Connie reeled herself into shore, the door turned raft touching the sandy blue shoreline then getting drug up further and away from the lapping waves after an hour of tugging. The sky was already pretty dark by the time she got to shore, the stars visible in the sky, the last bits of the sunset fading away as night started to fall on the alien world.   
>Connie smiled as she picked the fish she caught up off her raft, placing it and her bags aside and away from her bone spikes she's set up in the sand. Connie takes a brief moment to admire the size of the fish she caught, its size matching the length and width of her own arm. She was sure there were bigger fish in the ocean, but having a fish of that size be her first catch was very encouraging to her.   
>With her bags and her catch out of the way, Connie grunted as she drug the door turned raft back through the spikes and towards the opening she was sleeping in, leaning it up along the outer wall to have it ready to pull into place when she was finished with her remaining tasks for the day. She took a brief moment to untie the vines coiled around and through the gaps of her door and from around the rock she had fastened herself to. She didn't want any creature eating away at her vine in the night, or worse, using it to pull her door free from the mouth of the cave. She sighed as she shook the thought from her mind and tossed the length of freed vines into the cave. She didn't want to think too hard about what could be lurking out there, she knew she needed her rest, both to heal and to get her energy up for the next day.   
>With the vine untied and her door close to the entrance of where she was sleeping, Connie turned her attention back to her supplies. Once more, she built a fire close to the waves, digging a shallow hole to allow the ocean liquid to pool in for her to drink. She cracked a smile as she cut into the fish with her sword, making a long incision along its belly and cutting deep into its flesh at the head and tail portions.   
>Connie worked at the fish gently with her sword after that, using her cuts as starting points to peel the fish's meat away from its bones. setting aside parger portions on a large blue leaf she had pulled free from her bag. She tossed the bits of bone into the waves as she worked, finding them too brittle for her purposes, some of them already cracked as she kept cutting into the fish. She assumed the force of fighting against her pulls on the fishing line had caused the existing damage, or else she had hooked an already weakened fish from the sea.  
>With the fish meat separated and the bones, head, fins, and tail discarded into the sea, Connie, pulled a piece of wood from her large leaf bag and whittled the tip into a sharp point to skewer the fish meat with. The pieces she had cut were too small to skewer on her sword without risking them falling off and into the fire. There was still that risk of course, but with less of the meat broken and no wider portion to push the hole wider apart, it wasn't as large of a risk.   
>Connie smiled as she stuck her fish skewer into the fire, letting the meat roast a bit. Her mouth watered as she took in the aroma of the cooking met, reminding her of how a steak smelled as her mother cooked them on the grill. "If this tastes as good as it smells, I'm in for a treat." Connie thought to herself as she watched the light green fish meat grow darker in color.   
>Connie pulled the fish out of the fire as it started to change from a normal green towards a darker forest green, the aroma starting to give off a lightly burned smell. She figured from the smell and the color the meat was as cooked as she could get it and still enjoy the taste. Her stomach rumbled as she blew gently on a piece of cooked fish, still skewered at the end.  
>Gently, Connie pulled the piece of fish off of her stick and popped it into her mouth, letting the flavor of the meat mingle on her tongue as she sampled her latest alien feast. Connie found the meat had a charred taste to it, but otherwise reminded her of the flavor her mother achieved when she grilled steaks, with a hint of an orange aftertaste. She made a mental note to cook the fish for a shorter period the next time she caught one as she pulled the rest of the meat off the stick and ate it, piece by piece, filling her stomach up with the meat and nibbles off of the alien leaves, choosing the sweeter flavor of the pink striped purple leaves from the red tree limbs she had recently gathered.   
>With her meal finished, it was truly dark on the alien world, her fire the only source of light besides the faint glow of the stars overhead. Connie pulled one of the pieces of wood out of the fire and sticking the unlit end into the sand before she took her usual steps to put out the fire and save as much of the wood as she could, not wanting any pieces to go to waste unnecessarily.   
>Connie stifled a yawn as she slung her bags onto her back, grabbed her sword in her right hand and the still lit branch in her left, and made her way to the cave. She stuck the torch into a sandy portion inside as she gently placed her sword against the entrance of the cave, removing the bags from her back and laying them down in the same spot she had slept last night, taking a moment to pull out her folded up multicolored leaf blanket she had stitched together.   
>Connie could already feel the chill settling in on the alien world now that she was away from a roaring fire. Nights were indeed getting colder, as she had feared. "At least I have something to cover up with for now, but who knows if it'll be enough. I might need to make another blanket." Connie thought to herself as she made her way back to the cave's still exposed entrance.  
>Connie grunted as she lifted the door she had made up and drug it over to the cave's entrance, the sharper bits on it facing outward as extra deterrent. She smiled in satisfaction as she got the door in place, her body fatigued and a dull throb in her wounded left leg. Grabbing her sword and the torch, she let out a sigh as she turned the fire down towards the ground and smothered the fire in the sand, burying the smoldering end in the sand and the dirt before slowly shuffling towards her bags and blanket.   
>Connie let out one more yawn before she wrapped the leaf blanket around herself and curled up to rest, her head lying gently on her brown bag as she thought of her time so far on the alien world. Another day had wound down, four times she had slept upon the strange planet, with three full days spent so far upon the surface. While her wound was still a concern, she was still proud of all she had managed to do so far, patting herself on the back mentally as she drifted off to sleep, her sword close to her in case she needed it in the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is likely the last chapter before I put the story through a timeskip of a few days. I won't be working on this story again until Monday either way, so we'll see how I feel then.


	15. A foul morning surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie wakes up for another morning of survival, only to find something has gone bad.

>Connie awoke in her little cave the next morning feeling very refreshed. She let out a little yawn as she stretched her arms and legs out, a slight pain shooting through her left leg as she put weight on it. She noted that the pain wasn't as severe as it was yesterday, which gave her hope the wound was healing at a good rate. A quick removal of the leaf bandage around her leg confirmed her hopes, the would was closing up nicely and wasn't discolored, a good sign. She flipped the leaf strip over and tied it back tight over the wound with the vine she had just untied, then proceeded with her morning routine, slinging her bags onto her back and grabbing her sword..   
>A brief struggle allowed Connie to once more dislodge the makeshift door from the entrance of her resting place. The light kissed her face as she stepped into the sunlight. Her eyes squinted a bit as they adjusted, keeping her still for a moment.   
>Connie eyed the orange sky above her with concern. Floating in the air were a couple of clouds, light green in hue but large in size, clustered closely together. She briefly wondered if they were the equivalent of normal clouds or storm clouds before she shook the thoughts aside. "No sense worrying about that right now, I'm sure I'll see the signs of a storm before it hits if one is coming." she thought to herself before dragging the door aside and leaning it up next to the rock she had tied it to with vines yesterday.   
>Weaving through the bone spikes she had stuck into the beach, Connie made her way next to the shoreline, ready to start her usual fire. She smiled as she dug through the leaf bag, pulled out her fire starting stick and a few extra branches, then reached for her wrapped meat.   
>Connie's smile faded as she pulled the wrapped meat out from her bag, a strange odor coming from within the wrappings. She grimaced as she placed the yellow leaf in her lap and slowly undid the vines around it keeping it together. When the leaf fell away and the meat was fully exposed, her fears were confirmed.   
>A sickeningly sweet aroma was wafting from the meat now, giving Connie a toothache just from smelling it. A quick run of her fingers along the surface of a few pieces confirmed the meat was starting to feel slimy to the touch. Connie recognized the change of smell and the slimy textures as signs the meat was starting to turn bad.   
>"I can't risk eating this." Connie muttered to herself as she set the leaf and the meat aside, pulling a few bits of blue, grey, pink striped purple, and yellow leaves out before digging through her brown bag for another protein bar. She lets out a sigh as she alternates between taking a bite out of the bar and bites from all the leaves at once, letting the flavors mix together in her mouth into a cacophony of flavors. She doesn't like resorting to her protein bars, she knows she'll need to replace her food stock, and that her options were limited.   
>Connie stands up in determination, wrapping the spoiled meat back in the yellow leaf but leaving it and her bags sitting on the beach next to her sword. She makes her way through the bone spikes and towards the makeshift door she had used as a raft yesterday, a dull pain settling into her leg as she pushed herself to walk faster than she should have.   
>Connie smiled as she got to work, once more tying the long rope of vines she had crafted around the rock she had anchored herself to yesterday, and around the bottom portion of the raft, giving the vines a few test tugs before she started dragging the door turned raft towards the alien ocean.   
>Connie once more got the raft onto the yellow liquid sea, humming to herself as she loaded her bags and the wrapped up spoiled meat onto the small vessel, then stepped onto it herself with her sword in her hand. She gave the sands under the raft a few quick pushes, using her sword as leverage and causing the raft to once more start drifting off towards sea.   
>Connie kept humming as she pulled out the hook and line she had prepared yesterday, as well as the branch she had used to fish with, stripped of all its leaves and excess limbs. It was quick work to get the fishing pole back the way she had it yesterday, ready to be used when she got out far enough. She took a look back towards the shoreline and sighed, she hadn't drifted all that far out yet. Not wanting to be bored while drifting out to sea, she pulled out a few more thin yet sturdy branches, more brown seaweed, and some of the spikes she had pulled from the quill-backed predator that had attacked her and got to work, cleaning the seaweed stems to make lines, carving the spikes into sharp hooks, and shaping the branches into replacement poles, just in case any of them got broken or lost.   
>By the time she had finished crafting two dozen hooks, a dozen replacement lines, and three spare poles, Connie had drifted out far enough to sea for the anchoring vine to be pulled almost completely taught. She looks over to the spoiled meat before letting out a sigh and muttering to herself. "Well, if I can't eat it, maybe the fish will. If they don't like it, I'll have to dump it into the sea. Can't risk a predator smelling the decaying meat and finding me without the meat having some use." She baits the line and drops it into the sea, gripping the fishing pole firmly as she waits.   
>Much to Connie's surprise, she doesn't have to wait long. The tug at the end of her line comes quickly and strong. Her eyes widen in surprise as she starts fighting with whatever is hooked at the other end, wrapping the seaweed around her hand and the pole as she tries to angle the fish and bring it in. Soon the struggling died down on the line, letting Connie reel in the fish the rest of the way.   
>Connie smiled as she got a good look at what she had caught. Unlike the red fish she had caught yesterday, this one was a lovely golden yellow color. It's body was fatter and shorter, sharp teeth were fixated in its mouth, two red eyes sat on each side of its head. It struck Connie as strange that this form of aquatic life didn't seem to have any fins at all, her curiosity at how it got around growing as she examined it further. Her curiousity soon led her to discovering the answer when she pressed on the creature's body slightly, liquid shooting out in thin streams from various points. "Of course, the force of pushing liquid out of its body propels it in any direction." Connie whispered in awe.  
>Connie once more baited her line with another piece of the blue meat, lowering it into the water. Another short wait was all it took before she got another nibble at the end of the line. This time, she reeled in another of the red fish she had caught yesterday, but this one was smaller, not as long and only four fins on each side instead of the six of the one she caught yesterday. "Must be a younger member of the species." Connie thought to herself as she set it next to the golden fish she had already caught.  
>With two fish caught in quick proximity to each other, Connie turned her attention to her bags, rummaging through one before she found the purple meat she had used as bait yesterday. She smiled as she chucked it out to sea as hard as she could, watching it arc in the air before landing with a loud splash a few yards away. "At least I could get rid of that foul tasting stuff, not even good for bait." she thought to herself as she placed another small bit of blue meat on a hook and dipped it into the water.   
>Connie's morning kept up in a similar manner, spent fishing, reeling in a few more fish, one a bright orange with a small webbed sail on its back and six thrashing thin legs, it's head shamed more like a reptile than a fish. Another was a deep blue and reminded Connie of an Earth Crab, except instead of large pincers, it had sharp little sickles at the end of each of its four large forearms, the dozens of legs under it feeling sharp to her touch. The last different species she caught reminded her of an Earth whale, but in miniature form, it's body a vibrant purple,without the teeth to filter out krill, and with gills instead of the blowhole, and three tails behind its body. For its size, Connie found this species particularly heavy and hard to fight.   
>Of course, it wasn't all successes. Connie had ended up snapping a pole, three different lines, and had lost seven hooks. Still, the pile of seafood she had by the time she started getting hungry was more than worth it to her. She licked her lips as she started reeling herself into the shoreline.   
>Connie let her eyes wander overhead as she reeled herself in. She noticed the clouds overhead had grown darker, and grew more numerous in nature. "Strange, the clouds seem to be gathering and growing darker. I hope that's not a sign of rain, that's the last thing I need to deal with right now." she thought to herself as she kept dragging herself into shore.  
>The first thing Connie did when she got to shore was set her bags and her seafood catches aside, far enough on the beach to not get washed back out to sea. She proceeded to drag the door turned raft back up to the mouth of the cave, leaning it up next to the entrance and leaving it tied. She would worry about untying it later, right now she wanted to get to a proper meal.  
>Connie was mildly disappointed as she set up the fire and cooked pieces off of her different catches of the day. She found each form of seafood she sampled tasted almost exactly the same to the red fish she had caught yesterday. "A shame, I had hoped I'd have a variety of flavors in my catches." Connie thought to herself as she kept cooking her haul, nibbling away at bits of the seafood as she cooked until her stomach was filled.   
>With her stomach filled, she could get to work on cooking the rest of her catches up, to preserve them longer. Connie hummed a little tune as she carefully cooked each piece of seafood. Her morning had gotten off to a bad start, but now that she had a fresh stock of meat, things were looking up.


	16. End of one day, start of another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie wraps her day up after a successful fishing session. The next morning, she sets her mind on a goal.

>The rest of Connie's day after discovering that the meat that had spoiled made better fishing bait than the stuff she had used previously went rather smoothly. Connie decided to walk down the beach, with the alien ocean to her left hand side. She wanted to see if there was a better spot to climb up from within a quarter day's walk of her, or see if she could find anything interesting on the beach.  
>Much to her dismay, the landscape pas the point she had climbed up from kept rising and eventually leveled out into a difficult to climb landscape. She noticed a few of the limbs from the tree she had cut down had made their way down to the beach, the ends of them splintered and jagged in nature, but with no signs of footprints in the sand itself other than her own. "That's a little worrying, I hope whatever knocked those branches down isn't still around." she whispered to herself as she clutched her sword a little tighter.  
>As she walked further down the beach, she noticed the blue sand was beginning to grow lighter in color. She could still see the white mountain range towering in the distance, growing larger and closer as she walked. "I wonder if the sand will be completely white by the time I get to the mountains, if I keep traveling the beach? If the landscape isn't going to dip back down, I may need to climb up at the low point and keep going that way.  
>While Connie was walking, she was looking up at the sky, to keep track of where the alien sun was in the orange sky. She took note of the green clouds in the air, they had continued to accumulate in the sky, beginning to form small clusters in the air in various spots instead of the singular spot they had been before. "It better not rain, I don't know what alien weather will do to me, and I don't want to find out. Maybe it'll break up in the next few days."  
>When the sky overhead indicated the sun was halfway between noon and sunset, Connie turned around and began walking back to her campsite. She paused for a brief moment in front of the spot where the upper portion of the ground was closest to the beach, a dull pain throbbing in her left leg. "I'll have to work on something to climb up that easier, just in case I need to get off the beach before my leg heals." she thought to herself as she turned her attention back towards getting back to her campsite, her mind running through the materials she had access to and what she could do with them. A plan began forming in her mind as she walked, her pace slowed down a little as the pain in her leg started to get worse. "Really hope my leg will heal quickly, being slowed down and stuck in the same general area sucks, and is really dangerous for me. The longer I sit still, the more likely it is whatever was lurking around the first night will come back."  
>When Connie got back to her campsite, the sun was almost entirely behind the trees again. She proceeded with her usual mealtime routine, light the fire, dig a small hole for the ocean liquid to gather in, cook up her food, and then eat. With her earlier fishing being so successful, Connie was able to fill her belly easily and still have enough seafood to last her through the day tomorrow.  
>Connie stifled a yawn as she put the fire out and shuffled her way through the bone spikes and towards the cave. Once more, she untied the vines from around the rock and the door she had made, threw the vines into her bag, and drug the door into place at the entrance, wedging it in tightly to keep larger things out. She took up her usual sleeping spot out of the line of sight from the cave entrance, wrapped herself up in her leaf blanket, and drifted off to sleep next to her bags and her sword. The fourth day on the alien world had wound down.  
\-------  
>The next day, Connie found herself eager to get started on the new day. She proceeded with her normal morning routine of exiting her cave, preparing a breakfast for herself, and filling her stomach with more alien meats. Instead of going fishing after her meal however, Connie had another goal in mind for today.  
>Connie left the makeshift door leaning up near the entrance of the cave. Instead, she slung the leaf bag and her brown bag on her back and proceeded up the beach, back to the spot she had climbed up from previously. While it was only twice her height between the beach and the edge above, she still didn't like the idea of a strait vertical climb up if she needed to move fast.  
>"I know what I need to do. I just hope I can make it work." Connie thought to herself as she pulled the bags off of her back and sat them close to the wall of dirt. "First thing's first, I'll be here a while, I should set up some things." she thought to herself as she started towards the shoreline. Her fingertips dug into the blue sand as she scooped enough out to create a decent sized hole with a shallow line dug from the lapping waves to the hole a short distance away. She was going to be working there for a while and she didn't want to get too close to the flowing waves, in case the current of the alien ocean got rougher.  
>The next thing Connie did was dig out all the pieces of red wood she had cut from the tree she had cut down. She let out a slight sigh as she organized the wood from longest branches to shortest. A lot of the pieces were barely the size of her arm and shorter. "If I'm going to make a ladder to climb up the cliff faster in an emergency.....I'm going to have to scale this one more time. At least it's not much of a climb."  
>With that thought, Connie left the shorter pieces of wood lying on the beach along with her leaf bag. She strapped the brown bag to her back along with her sword, and started hoisting herself up, pain shooting up her left leg as she climbed up vertically once more. She let out a sigh of relief as she pulled herself onto the orange grass, resting belly down for a moment before she forced herself up.  
>Connie cautiously approached the tree she had cut down, her sword back in her hands and held tightly. With two days having passed between her toppling the mighty tree and her return, there was no telling what could have set up shelter within the thick leafy top.  
>Connie carefully traversed around the leafy top towards the part of the tree where the leaves started growing thinner to reveal the thicker limbs. With a smile on her face and her senses on alert for movement and noise, Connie got to work cutting through one of the larger limbs, moving her blade back and forward along the wood slowly, watching carefully as she sawed further through the massive limb six times as thick as her own arms.  
>Connie wasn't sure how long she had been cutting before she had cut through the large limb. She let out a brief sigh of relief before she refocused her attention. She hesitated for a moment as she leaned her sword up against the fallen tree trunk before wrapping both of her hands around the massive tree limb. With all her strength, Connie started to pull at the severed limb, hoping to pull it free without additional cuts.  
>Connie's hopes soon faded as she realized the limb wasn't moving much with her pulls, sweat beading down her forehead from her efforts. A thought ran through her mind. "Either the limb is too heavy for me to move......or some of the smaller branches are tangled up with branches still attached. Either way, I need to cut into the wood again."  
>Connie grumbled a little as she picked up her sword, took a deep breath to steel her nerves, and started making her way into the thicker branches to see what she could do to break the massive limb free and get it pulled free. She hated that she had to go into the foliage at all. Cutting at the exterior was one thing, but within the leaves, attacks would be harder to spot coming.  
>Connie kept brushing leaves and limbs aside as she weaved her body through others, every little rustle in the branches making her glance around her, her body tensed up and ready to strike if she needed to. Soon, she had made her way a few feet in, letting out another sigh as she looked back at how far she had traveled, then towards the portion of the limb she could see ahead of her. "This tree limb is way too large, why'd I think I could pull this out as it was?! I'll need to cut this free, but at least it'll be easier to carry, and sturdy enough to hold my weight."  
>Connie got to work cutting through the limb once more, her ears still listening for any abnormal rustling that might happen as she cut away. She stopped cutting a few times when the limb in her sights shifted more than expected, creating a louder than normal rustle, her body tensing up further as she stopped for a moment and prepared herself for an attack, her tension releasing when the attack never came. Soon, she had managed to cut through the limb entirely at a second spot, a smile of satisfaction on her face.  
>With one limb cut through and now free to be pulled out, a thought crossed Connie's mind. "I'm already in here, and I'll need another larger limb for the other ladder length, I should cut into another branch while I'm here and follow it out.  
>With that plan in her mind, Connie set her gaze on the nearest large limb and began cutting through it with her sword. She notices there was less rustling and noise as she cut through this one. "Probably because no parts of it are free yet." Connie mused to herself as she kept working. Her secondary cutting within the thick mass of limbs and leaves went faster than the first. She breathed a sigh of relief as she started following the other limb out of the thick mass, moving slowly to avoid tripping and to allow herself time to react, just in case.  
>Connie found herself having to climb up a bit as she neared the end of the branch she had cut one part free from. She emerged from the dense mass of pink striped purple leaves a short distance from where she had made her first cuts, but still standing on a portion of the tree that wasn't touching the ground directly. She swallowed hard as she crouched down at the base of the limb she wanted to cut. "Last thing I need to do is lose my balance and fall, even if it isn't much of a drop." Connie muttered to herself as she started to cut through the limbs.  
>Connie's stomach was rumbling in hunger by the time she finished cutting through the other end of the limb. She grunted as she stuck her sword into the bark of the tree and gave the limb a few quick tugs, her heart skipping a beat as the limb pulled free with ease. She smiled as she pulled the limb out of the treetop and pushed it down to the ground. She grabbed her sword from the bark, then carefully slid down the trunk back to ground level, where she proceeded to pull the other large limb free.  
>Connie's excitement was high from her success as she strapped her sword to her back with a vine and drug the two large limbs over to the cliff edge, pushing them off and watching them land on the beach, two dull thuds sounding as they hit the blue sand below. With two solid pieces of wood to build the supporting beams of her ladder with secure, she was eager to get some lunch in her stomach and looking forward to seeing if her plan would work out like she thought it would. She hoped she wouldn't need a ladder for an emergency easy quick climb, of course, but one could never be too careful when your life is at stake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said there'd be a timeskip? I decided that wasn't happening on as large of a scale. This chapter and next might have some generalization, but there's no skipping multiple days at once like I thought I would.


	17. Wrapping up day five, going through day six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An explanation of Connie's activities in the second half of her fifth day, and what she did on her sixth day on the alien world.

>After Connie had finished a delicious lunch of seafood and put out her fire, she turned her attention back towards the task she had in mind. She positioned the large limbs on the beach, spacing them out wide enough for her to fit between them comfortably.   
>With the limbs spaced out, Connie proceeded to pull out her stock of wood from her green leaf bag, setting aside the pieces that she felt like were too thin or the ones that weren't long enough to fill the gap. When she finished sorting the wood out, she put the wood rejected for going into the ladder back in her leaf bag, then got to work placing the remaining lengths along the two larger limbs.   
>Connie knew stepping on a singular branch would be hazardous, so she instead grouped them together in bundles of three. The hope was that tying them together and fastening them tightly would create a step strong enough for her to put her weight on. She started working on tying the limbs together with lengths of seaweed stems, stripped of the vegetation upon them.   
>As the sun lowered in the sky, Connie kept working on her ladder, running through the limbs she had set aside, spacing the bundles out according to how many she had, and running through her supply of seaweed. By the time the sun was starting to sink below the treelines, Connie's ladder was completed. She leaned it up against the cliff before grabbing a hold of the bottom and giving it a gentle shove up. "Don't want to take the chance of the waves carrying it away." She thought to herself as she watched the ladder slide back on the cliff top, leaving a little part of it hanging over the edge.   
>Connie knew it'd be too dangerous to fumble down the beach in the dark without a light, so she decided to take another pause where she had built her ladder to have herself another meal, heating up the pieces of seafood and seasoning them with bits of alien leaves. She made sure to keep a stick lit after she finished her meal, carrying it in front of her like a torch in her left hand, her right hand gripping her sword tightly as she walked down the beach, her bags on her back, hurrying slightly as she rushed to get back to her proper campsite.  
>By the time Connie arrived back at her cave, the world around her was completely dark, save for the light given off by her torch. The clouds had become denser in the sky as the day had continued, blocking out the visibility of the stars in the sky at this point in time. Connie was still hoping the clouds would break up, but was beginning to wonder how severe weather could get on the planet. "I really hope those clouds break up tomorrow." Connie muttered to herself as she drug the makeshift door into place, put out her torch, and curled up in her usual spot to sleep. The fifth day on the alien world had passed.  
\-------  
>The next day for Connie was very simplistic. She woke up like she usually did, taking note that the light filtering through the cracks of her door were lighter than they usually were. When she got outside, she could see the sky above her was almost completely blanketed in thick green clouds. She let out an annoyed sigh before she started making her breakfast. "I guess those clouds aren't going to break up after all. That could be troublesome later." she thought to herself as she was preparing her fire for her morning meal.   
>After eating, Connie hit the seas once more, turning her makeshift door into a raft again, fastening it to a rock with her length of vines tied together, and heading out to sea. She managed to use the last of the blue alien meat she had on hand in the course of her fishing, catching more of the sea life that she had previously, creating a sizable pile on her raft. by the time noon rolled around. Unfortunately for her, she had also managed to snap all but three of her seaweed fishing lines, and lost most of the hooks she had carved out of bone. "If I need to fish again, I'll have to prepare new hooks and lines." she muttered to herself as she dragged the raft back to shore, her stomach rumbling with hunger.   
>After cooking and eating a lunch of seafood and cooking up her latest catches, Connie spent part of the afternoon going to where she had left her ladder she had built, lassoing one of the legs with a vine rope and pulling it off the cliff, then testing her weight upon the steps she had tied together out of the tree limbs. She could hear light cracks popping in the wood as she applied her weight, grimacing as she stood there for a moment, then stepping off with a sigh. "This'll only be good for a few uses at most. I'll need to be careful if I have to use it."  
>With the ladder tested out, Connie managed to toss it back up to rest on the cliff above her before she walked back towards her campsite, then past the cave towards where she had gathered the brown seaweed before. With her supply of seaweed used in the creation of her ladder and the fishing lines mostly broken, she desperately needed new pieces to utilize. She gathered as much of the brown seaweed as she could stuff int he compartments of her brown bag that weren't occupied, then walked around slowly for the rest of the day, feeling the breeze on her body and the sand beneath her feet as she leisurely made her way back to her campsite.   
>The rest of Connie's evening went the same as it usually did. She made her meal from the seafood she had caught, seasoned with the leaves once more, drug her door into place, set the vine rope aside near the mouth of the cave, covered herself in the leaf blanket she had made, and drifted off to sleep. The sixth day on the alien planet had wrapped up, she was almost halfway through her allotted time on the planet.   
\-------  
>Connie awoke to a loud boom, followed by a louder rumble that shook the ground she was sleeping on and echoed loudly within her dwelling. She grumbled as she opened her eyes slowly, her tired mind processing what was going on. Around her, the cave was still shrouded in an inky darkness, brief flashes of light pouring in through the cracks on her door as she hear loud booms and rumbles from outside. Between the booms and rumbles, she could hear a sound that reminded her of heavy rainfall back on Earth.   
>Connie fumbled through her leaf bag to pull out two stocks to create a fire, rubbing them together until she managed to get a small flame going, lighting the end of one stick while extinguishing the sparks on the other. Slowly, she fumbled her way to the mouth of the cave, and peaked through the holes on her makeshift door.  
>Connie's heart skipped a beat as she peered out into the night. She could now see the red bolts of energy coursing through the sky outside, and crashing down into the sea, creating flashes that lit up the beach itself. Within those flashes, she could see large drops of yellowish-red liquid falling to the beach outside. But the most concerning thing was the shoreline. Connie realized the shoreline had already moved up a few inches, and the ebb and flow of the alien sea was becoming more violent with time.   
>Realization dawned on Connie, the shock and magnitude of the situation causing her to almost drop her makeshift torch on the ground. "Stars, the storm is gonna flood the shoreline! I, I have to move, NOW!" She spoke out, jamming her torch in the sand as she pushed her body through her drowsy state back towards where she had been sleeping a few moments before. She hastily folded her blanket stitched together from leaves up, shoving it into her brown bag before throwing it on her back, followed by throwing her leaf bag on her back.   
>With her bags on her back, Connie grabs her sword from the ground, then moves back towards the entrance of the cave, a dull pain throbbing in her left leg. While her leg was doing better, it wasn't quite healed yet. She couldn't afford not to move quickly however, she had no idea how fast the level of the sea would rise, she had to make every moment count. She paused briefly to gather the long length of vine rope she had been using to tether her door to the rock on the shoreline, shoving it into her leaf bag before she started pushing on her door.   
>The door pushed free harder than she usually dislodged it, the door crashing against the bone spikes still stuck on the beach. Connie had a pang of regret as she eyed the spikes. "I wish I had time to remove them from the beach, but I don't know how long I have to get higher up. I can't spare the time removing them."  
>A quick motion dislodged the torch from the sand. Connie held it out of the cave, only to have the fire go out in a few seconds from the alien rain. "Figured that'd happen, but had to be sure. No light, running in the darkness down the beach in the rain. Not ideal." she grumbled to herself as she pulled a large blue leaf out of her bag and did her best to wrap it over her head and face. If she couldn't have a light, she'd at least keep her head as dry as she could.   
>Connie took off in a mad dash as soon as she managed to weave through the bone spikes still standing. A dull pain shot up through her left leg as she ran, her shoes creating light splashes as the ocean to her left continued to rise and the waves became stronger. She found chastised herself as she ran. "Stupid mistake, I should have moved my ladder closer to my shelter when I finished it. Now I'm pushing myself in the rain trying to beat the flooding of the beach!"  
>Connie wasn't sure how long she had been running by the time she reached the portion of cliff she had left her ladder on, only that her left leg was throbbing in pain from the forced run, her body was soaking wet and her clothes heavy, and the liquid of the alien ocean was now up to her ankles, the ebb and flow of the liquid creating splashes against her legs, hitting her up to her knees. She took a calming breath before she pulled out a length of vine, tied the end into a lasso, and tossed it up, hooking one of the legs on her makeshift ladder.   
>With a small grunt, Connie pulled the ladder down to the beach, taking a moment to wedge the legs as far into the beach as she could before she started climbing up it. She could feel the steps of the ladder crack and shift under her as she scurried up the ladder, but the ladder managed to hold her weight, allowing her to scramble to the top of the shallow cliff side.   
>Connie breathed a sigh of relief as she looked at the beach from the top of the cliff. She could no longer see the sandy shore below, only the waves of liquid now lapping at the cliff side. She took a moment to stop, think, and let the pain in her left leg die down a little before she made her next move.  
>Connie's body was crying out in protest, the adrenaline of trying not to get stuck on a flooding beach wearing off, drowsiness setting back in. She knew she had to find a way to sleep safely, but she lacked the energy and the supplies to set up a shelter on the ground. Her eyes wandered towards the trees of the jungle, her course of action becoming clear in her weary mind.   
>Connie strapped her sword to her back before she grabbed the top of her ladder and give the whole thing a few quick pulls. It took a little effort, but she managed to drag her creation up the cliff. A smile crossed her face as she carried her ladder off towards the jungle, leaning it against a tall tree, and pushing the legs into the damp soil as far as they'd go.  
>Connie gave the ladder a few firm shakes before she nodded in satisfaction. She took her time climbing, adjusting her weight on the portions of the steps that felt the sturdiest, making her way slowly to the top. She let out a sigh of relief as she crawled off the top of the ladder and into the red wooded treetop without incident.  
>Connie had two more things to do before she could try and sleep again. The first one was pulling her leaf blanket out and draping it around her body. The natural canopy of the leaves overhead were keeping her from getting wetter, she needed to keep her body warm now, or she risked getting sick. If she got sick, it'd all be over for her, she'd have to call Pearl and go home. She didn't want that to happen.  
>Connie's other task was making sure she didn't fall out of the tree while she slept. For that, she leaned her body up against the trunk, and tied herself to it, sitting upright and her leaf blanket between her body and the vines, tying herself as tight as she could, then using shorted lengths of vine to tie her legs to the thick limb she was sitting on. She hoped having herself tied in two ways would be enough to keep her from falling in the night.   
>The last thing Connie did was tie her sword to her lap. She wanted it close by if she needed it, but didn't want to cut herself on it while she slept. She ended up tying it down outside the leaf blanket she had draped over herself.  
>With her position as secure as she could get, Connie started drifting off to sleep once more. She found herself hoping the rain would die down while she slept, and hoped nothing dangerous would find her in the night. She hoped her sudden awakening wouldn't make her too tired the next day, when the sun rose once more in the sky. Tomorrow would be a difficult journey, but she was determined to push on with her adventure. She still had limb enhancers to find, or eight more days to survive. She still had a lot of planet to explore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, Connie's up in a tree now, and it's raining. She lost her door, and the bone spikes she had on the beach. Her injured leg is still bugging her. Her position isn't the best now, she'll have to work harder to keep surviving.


	18. The start of day seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie wakes up in the top of a tree, and decides on a course of action to take.

>Connie woke up the next morning feeling slightly achy, but otherwise ready for the day, dull light filtering through the treetops. She took note of the sound of rain hitting the leaves above her, drops of the alien liquid dripping through the canopy of the trees, rolling off the leaf blanket draped around her body at a steady pace. While the rain had eased up during the night, it was still falling too quickly, keeping the world around the girl damp.   
>"Gonna need to find a dry spot somewhere if I want a fire." Connie muttered to herself as she started shifting herself in the tree, trying her best not to let anything of hers drop to the ground as she slowly untied herself from the thick branch under her and the tree trunk to her back. Her back was a little sore from where she had been sleeping upright, and leaned against the contents of her leaf bag and her brown bag, she could feel the tension release as the length of vine came undone.   
>Once she was untied, Connie put her sword in her leaf bag and stood up slowly, keeping her leaf blanket draped over her body and the leaf around her head tied tightly. She carefully tested her footing as she looked around the treetop, looking for signs of movement and feeling for the stability of the branch she was standing on.   
>While Connie could hear the sounds of life around her, the sounds of the leaves rustling and the quiet chitters, chirps, and whines of animals, she couldn't see any indication that any were near her. "Either they're staying away from me out of fear of the unknown......or nothing dangerous has realized I'm up here yet." she thought to herself.   
>Satisfied that nothing was coming after her right now, and that the limb she was standing on was sturdy, Connie turned her attention to where she had left the ladder she had built. To her relief, she found it standing, still leaned against the tree where she had left it. Looking down the ladder towards the forest floor, she was relieved to see the ground was still visible below, that the rain hadn't made the sea level rise high enough to flood the forest floor. She hesitated for a moment as she eyed the ladder. "Do I really want to climb down right now? It'll be harder to climb down without a ladder if I travel by treetop, but traveling the forest floor exposes me to more angles of attack. Then again, I could lose my footing up here and fall, that'd be pretty bad too."  
>After considering her options for a moment, Connie decides to climb out of the treetops. "It'll be easier to defend myself on the ground, less chance of a lethal accident." Connie muttered to herself as she tested the top step of the ladder with her foot. Thinking quickly, she used a vine to tie the leaf blanket around her body tightly, to ensure it didn't fall off of her during the climb, and to have it continue functioning as a raincoat. Slowly, she started climbing down, testing each step carefully before she put her entire weight on it, pausing and winching every time she felt a makeshift step shift too much or heard the crack of wood under her feet.   
>It took Connie about fifteen minutes of slow climbing to get down the ladder and out of the tree. As her feet touched the damp soil of the forest floor, her stomach rumbled in protest, it was well past time for her to eat something this morning. She let out an annoyed sigh as she dug in her brown bag, pulling out a protein bar and some bits of brown seaweed, peeling the wrapper away from the bar before wrapping it in the seaweed.   
>Connie bit into the seaweed wrapped bar as she looked around the jungle floor, quickly spotting what she was looking for. To her right was the ocean, swollen from the heavy rainfall. She smiled in between bites as she turned herself around and started walking through the jungle, the ocean now to her left side. She had more incentive than ever to get to the white mountain range in the distance, she knew there would be caves along the surface that she could dry off in and take shelter in if the rain kept falling.  
>Connie's left leg ached as she kept walking through the jungle, her hands clutched tightly around the hilt of her sword, her senses on alert for anything that might be waiting to strike at her. She had been catching brief glimpses of color, mostly blue blurs jumping between the blue bushes that sat at the base of some of the red trees, but other forms stood out to her, moving around slower. One such critter had a massive red body, standing as tall as Connie on six thick legs. The creatures body was covered in fur, matted to its body from the dampness of the rain. Each of its legs came to an end in a hoof like pattern, forming an asterisk shape in the soil as it took slow steps. The creature had a short furry tail, round and surprisingly poofy despite the rain, colored a vibrant pink hue. The creature's head was what stood out to Connie, it reminded her of the cow heads she saw hanging on restaurant walls, except its horns branched off into dozens of points on its head, each one curling a different direction, forming a mass of spirals. Its ears were longer as well, furry and drooping down long, coming halfway down to the forest's floor.   
>Connie briefly considered attacking the red creature before she shook off the notion. "It's docile, but I don't know what it could do to me if I provoke it. I couldn't cook it anyways, too damp to make a fire. It could make noise that alerted predators to my presence too. Best to leave it alone." she thought to herself before she moved on.  
>As Connie kept walking through the jungle, she noticed less drops were falling on her, and the forest itself was growing darker. She took a few periodic glances upwards now, noticing that the limbs within the treetops were thicker in this portion of the jungle, the leaves denser. The ground under her feet didn't squish as much with her steps in this portion of the jungle, the rain didn't slide through as fast. She decided to take a moment to sit down at the base of a tree, where it was relatively dry. As she sat herself down on the ground, the pain throbbing in her left leg began to fade.   
>Connie decided to gently remove the leaf bandage around her leg while she was taking a break from walking, to see how her wound was doing. She untied the vine from around the bandage before gently lifting it away from her leg. She took notice of the wound underneath, the wound itself was healing nicely, the wound was healing well, scar tissue and new skin bringing the wound to a close. "Still gotta keep this covered as much as I can." Connie muttered to herself as she pulled out another strip of blue leaf to tie around her left leg, fastening it in place with the same vine she had been using. She really hoped that her leg would stop hurting in a few more days.   
>With a fresh bandage on her leg, Connie stood up slowly, only to pause as she heard a loud snapping sound. A chill went through her body as she heard more snaps around her, growing louder, faster, and likely closer. Connie stood up and clutched her sword tightly, looking around the forest for the source of the noise.   
>Connie's face went pale when she finally spotted what was making the noise. It was a large purple creature, its body vaguely resembling an Earth panther, with key differences. Its body was build far thicker than a normal Earth cat. The fur on each limb ended near the tips of its limbs, ending in large white spikes instead of paws, a central large spike surrounded by four smaller spikes. Upon its back, several large spines stuck out, reminding Connie of a porcupine's quills. At the base of its rear, a long tail wrapped around a tree limb, gripping it firming like a monkey's tail would. Upon its head, four large eyes sat on its face, two in the center, with two sticking on the sides of its head, giving the creature a wide view of its surroundings. But what Connie noticed the most was the creature's legs. Connected to its torso were eight appendages, four legs on each side of its body. While five ended in a familiar spike cluster, three of the legs, the two center right legs and the back most left leg, ended halfway down the leg.   
>"Oh stars, it's YOU!" Connie shouted out, gripping her sword tighter, wasting no time before she started dashing at the creature. The creature itself let out a snarl, two rows of red fangs on display as it made its own charge at the girl.   
>Connie took note that the creature was moving around slower than the last time she fought it as she dodged to her left at the last moment, sending the creature crashing into the red trees around it once more. This time however, none of its spikes lodged in the tree, the creature's body teetering a little as it shook off the daze of the impact. Connie took the opportunity to rush towards the beast, pushing through the pain ebbing in her left leg as she closed the distance between her and the monster.   
>"Gotta make this count!" Connie thought to herself as she thrust her sword forward, driving it into the beast's right side, cutting open a wide gash and ending the cut with a flourish, taking off the front most right leg from the beast. With a howl of pain mixed with a snarl of frustration, the beast found itself struggling to stay upright, half of its weight now supported on one lone leg on its right side. It turned around slowly to face Connie as Connie took a leap backwards, and prepared herself for the creature's next move.   
>Connie smiled as she watched the creature struggle to move towards her, its movements severely slowed down. Her smile turned into a serious expression as she made her own charge, letting out a yell as she charged at the creature's right side, cutting off its last right leg with her movements. She smiled once more as she heard the creature scream out and heard the satisfying thud behind her, mixed with a squishing sound from the muddy ground.   
>Connie took a brief moment to look behind her, watching as the purple beast writhed on the ground, struggling to get up but unable to do so. She briefly considered putting it out of its misery or harvesting it for materials before she decided against it. "It can't follow me, it might hurt me if I go in for a mercy kill. It's cries are no doubt drawing attention already, I need to get out of here, now."   
>Connie pushed herself into a mad dash, fighting against the urge to stop running as pain started shooting through her left leg again. She weaved through the trees as fast as she could, the screams and cries of the predator growing quieter as the distance between her and it increased. She desperately hoped anything dangerous would ignore her movements in favor of the loud noises her two time attacker was making.  
>After a few hours of running, Connie paused at the base of a large tree, to catch her breath and to let the pain in her leg die down. The canopy overhead was starting to thin again, more liquid was pouring down through the treetops and rolling off of her leaf hood and her blanket turned coat as she sat under the tree. She let out a sigh as her stomached rumbled a little, prompting her to dig out another protein bar, wrapping it up in more seaweed and leaves before she started taking bites out of it. "Hope I can find a dry spot to cook my food soon. I don't want to waste time trying to start a fire if there's a chance it'll get extinguished, but I'm running out of protein bars. I'll have to try lighting a fire one way or another soon."  
>Connie took a look back towards the direction she had ran from as she stood up from her rest. A smile crossed her face before she started walking slowly through the forest once more. "At least that thing won't be after me anymore. Justice and retribution has been served. Good riddance."  
\-------  
>Back in the forest, where the purple alien beast still thrashed, a large dark purple mass loomed over the beast's writhing and screaming form. Droplets of purple gunk fell onto the beast's body, slowing its thrashes down and quieting its howls of agony as the gunk coated more of its body and seeped into the wounds. Soon, the creature's body was coated from head to toe. A singular gunk covered clawed limb dragged the now silent predator into the main mass of its body. A low growl of satisfaction came from the purple mass as it spat out a few spines and bones from its body, then shuffled back into the forest, following the sounds of chittering and chirping in the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The introduction of a new critter is always fun to write. RIP purple alien cat spider, Connie had her vengeance on the one that hurt her. But where one falls, something else familiar now lurks in the forest.


	19. A stroll through the jungle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie continues through the jungle on the alien world, spotting a few curious creatures along the way.

>Connie started walking through the dense red trees of the jungle once more as she finished her lunch of a protein bar wrapped in alien vegetation, her ears listening for any signs of movement as she walked, droplets of the alien rain rolling off of her leaf hood and blanket turned raincoat as she walked. Occasionally, she would pause in place and raise the edges of her "coat" up to allow liquid to pool within the raised edges, then take a few long sips before releasing the leaves and moving forward, letting the liquid splash to the forest floor below.   
>As she kept moving through the trees, she noticed wildlife was starting to become more visible. both in the tops of the trees and closer to the ground. One such ground dwelling creature was fairly large, at least three times Connie's size and lumbering along slowly as its head looked around, resembling a mass of golden vines with two shining blue orbs within the tangles. Its torso was covered in a mossy like substance, primarily purple with spots of pink dotted along it. The rest of its body were shaded the same red of the tree trunks. from it's four-clawed hands at the end of two thick arms, to its six long tentacles that resembled the roots of the trees.   
>Connie froze for a moment as the creature paused in place and looked at her with its blue eyes, her grip on her sword tightening as she prepared for the worst. Much to her surprise though, the creature soon turned its head away from her and kept walking along at its slow pace. As the creature passed, Connie let out a sigh of relief as she muttered to herself. "Must be a herbivore, or maybe it was looking for something specific."   
>Another of the creatures Connie spotted was a tiny little creature that reminded her too much of lizards back home, its orange perched along the trunk of a tree. While it appeared to be no larger than her hand, Connie couldn't help but take note of the strange growths at the end of each of its six legs. Each one ended in something that appeared to be a cluster of crystals, glittering in shades of blue, green, and yellow, and forming the shape of claws. As much as Connie wanted to get closer to the small creature that looked so familiar, she decided to leave it alone. "It's not worth the risk of getting clawed, those crystal appendages look like they'd hurt." she thought to herself as she moved on.   
>One of the more surprising critters Connie saw wasn't crawling around at all, it was flying through the air, Connie couldn't help but gasp at the first one she saw, the center of its body colored a bright blue and resembling the petal patterns of a rose back home, but the size was as large as her own head if not a little bigger. At the center of the flower, she caught sight of a round orb within, shining green and appearing to move around like an eye would. Sprouting from the blue flower body, four short legs emerged, colored a slightly darker blue and ending in flat stumps, like stems that had been cut intentionally. The most distinct thing about it were the large wings on its body, closely resembling a bat's wings in shape, but colored a brilliant red, a stark contrast to the blues of the rest of the creature's body.   
>More than once, these air-born creatures would swoop across the path Connie was walking on, over towards a bright blue bush at the base of a tree or towards a large flower a short distance away. She could hear the sounds of chewing and slurping shortly after the winged critters landed where they were going, sounds that made Connie feel uneasy, and slightly thankful that they were more interested in the plants than in her.   
>As Connie kept walking forward through the jungle, the rain began to grow heavier once more, the limbs in the area of jungle she was in growing thinner overhead. When she looked up through the tree tops, she could see the sun was already halfway between its peak and the horizon. She knew she'd have to do something about sleep in a few hours, one way or another. She stopped walking for a moment, her left leg throbbing dully as she considered what to do in her mind. "I only have three choices. I can climb a tree now, and travel through the treetops for the rest of the day, I can push forward another hour and hope I come across a place to set up shelter easier, or I can stop right here and start building a shelter here. If I have to build a shelter from nothing, the extra hour could make all the difference."  
>Connie hesitated for a moment before she made her choice, and started dashing through the forest at a faster pace, her left leg throbbing with every step as thoughts passed through her mind. "As much as I'd like to get off the ground, climbing up and down a tree without making a ladder is a risky proposition at best, and I can't cut down a tree in the middle of the forest without having it crash into other trees. There was nowhere around that spot that would have made a good start to a shelter either. I need to keep running as fast as I can through the trees until I come across something I can use as a natural covering to build off of."  
>Connie's body moved at a fast pace as she weaved through the trees and pushed through the pain building in her still healing leg, her eyes darting around the trees and scanning quickly for somewhere to use as a start of a shelter.   
>Connie slowed down briefly during her sprints a few times, thinking she saw something she could use to her advantage, but quickly discounting them as not enough. "Too few flowers clustered over there. Those brambles have large thorns on them, no thanks. That fallen tree looks too rotten to use safely."   
>It's almost the end of her allotted hour of running, her left leg throbbing with intense pain from the amount of distance she's covered in a short time, her hopes of finding a decent place to start building dwindling. She's about to give up and stop running when she catches sight of something to her left. She struggles to slow herself down, her feet digging into the orange soil as she comes to a stop and turns around to look at what she thought she saw.  
>Connie's eyes tear up from the pain throbbing in her leg as she looks back at the spot, She rubs the tears out of her eyes as she scans the area she just ran past. The trees are closer together in that area, a few green trunks dotted along the sea of red. Growing in a large clump around the tree trunks were thick gold vines intertwined with the limbs that had fallen to the ground, a mix of red and green in hue.  
>Connie hesitated a moment as she saw the thorns growing on the golden vines, but she pushed the concerns aside. "Those thorns aren't as large or as frequent as some of the other plants I've seen. The trees being close together would allow me to set up more solid walls easier, and the brambles, limbs, and vines are dense enough to hide me. It's not perfect, but it'll do. Maybe I can get it set up enough to start a fire safely."  
>With that thought in her mind, Connie made her way over to the dense gathering of trees and the tangle of vines and tree limbs. She grunted and strained as she pushed the vines aside, using her sword to cut through some of the vines as she pushed her way inside the massive cluster of vegetation that was five times taller than she was.  
>Connie could feel thin thorns digging into her hands briefly as she pushed some of the vines aside, feel the thorns catching on the leaf blanket draped over her body and through the leaf hood over her head. To preserve the blanket she had made, she slipped the stitched together leaves off of her body, folding it up and stuffing it into her leaf bag on her back. She kept the hood in place, to keep the thorns off of her face as much as she could.   
>Connie made her way about twenty feet into the vast cluster of vegetation before she stopped pushing further in. She smiled as she looked back at the path she had cut, looking at the way she had weaved around a few of the tree trunks in satisfaction. "Not too open, but still open enough for me to get out easily, and I'll be difficult to spot in here. Just gotta duck behind one more tree, to be safe." she thought to herself as she made her way to the trunk of the nearest tree and pushed through the vines and branches around her to position herself behind the green tree trunk, one of the few green trees she had encountered on the planet.  
>Now that she was sure she was out of sight as much as she could get, Connie got to work on the next part of her plan. She slid her bags off her back and laid them to rest against the green tree trunk, then grasped her sword firmly in her hands. She began cutting away the vegetation in a more focused manor, intent on creating a more open pocket for her to move around and rest in. Bits of tree limbs and vines fell to the ground in clumps as she worked, cutting as far overhead as she could reach, slowly creating a little dome pocket within the vines as she worked her way a few feet out in a semicircle from the tree trunk she had set her bags against.   
>Once Connie had an area around her cleared out, she went back over to her leaf bag resting against the tree trunk. The forest was dimly lit now, the sun was almost over the horizon, the last of its light casting the alien forest in a dim glow as the light filtered through the leaves and tree trunks. Connie dug through her bag and smiled as she pulled out her fire starting stick and another larger stick to use to create the friction she needed.   
>With the sticks in her hand, she made her way to the center of the area she had cleared, and let out a heavy sigh as she gathered up some of the nearby vines and branches she had cut down, making a small pile at her feet. "Guess it's time to try my luck with a fire. At least the limbs and vines that are still overhead are keeping this area pretty dry." she thought to herself as she twirled one of the sticks in a cut out hole on the other stick.   
>It took Connie a few extra moments of rubbing to bring sparks to the dampened wood. Connie breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the vines and branches she had cut away catch fire, the glow from the flames casting the area around her in a warm glow. "Finally, I can get some better food in my stomach." she whispered to herself as she made her way back to her bags.   
>From there, it was a simple matter for Connie to prepare herself a meal. She took a few of the larger leaves she had, a blue and a few greys, and tied them up, hanging them over her head to catch the few drops of rain that were falling through all the layers of vegetation above her. Upon a sharpened stick, Connie skewered six large clumps of the seafood she had caught in the days prior, licking her lips as the aroma of the cooking meat wafted through the air.   
>Soon, Connie was feasting on the seafood she had reheated, savoring the flavors that reminded her of steaks back home, with hints of fruit as an aftertaste, slaking her thirst with the sweet liquid that gathered in the hanging leaves.  
>With her meal completed, Connie scooped up a few clumps of soil and smothered the fire, careful not to create too much smoke in the process. With the glow of the fire extinguished, Connie had to strain her eyes to see through the now dark area around her. She slowly made her way over to the tree she had left her bags, pulled the blanket she had stitched together out of leaves out, unfolded it, and draped it around her body as she curled up at the base of the green tree, her head resting upon her bags and her sword lying close by.   
>Connie let out a little yawn as her eyes closed and her mind wandered, the sound of rain hitting the leaves of the canopy of the jungle lulling her to sleep faster. It had now been one week since she had arrived on the alien world. She was halfway done with her survival exercise, and while things could have gone better for her than they had, she was still confident she could persevere through the next week, and make it through whatever else the alien planet decided to throw at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the end of the seventh day on the planet for Connie, and means the story is now no less than halfway finished due to the time frame I set at the beginning of the tale. Whether or not that translates into another 19 chapters, or if it's more or less than that, you'll have to find out as we go. 
> 
> Also I like inventing new alien critters, and I hope the descriptions of them are interesting enough.


	20. Start of day eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie wakes up and proceeds with her morning routine before she resumes exploring the forest.

>Morning dawned on the alien world, gentle dull light filtering through the trees. Connie was awakened by the sensation of several larger drops of liquid hitting her face, dripping off the leaf hood she still had tied around her head and onto her nose.   
>Connie grumbled as she sat up and pushed the blanket covering her gently aside. Her senses came back into focus as she stretched her limbs. Connie grumbled as she realized that the sounds of rain hitting the canopy of leaves within the trees had picked up since last night, and the sounds of wild critters had died down. A thought ran through her mind as she yawned. "Great, the rain got heavier instead of letting up last night. I hope it dies down soon."   
>Standing up carefully, Connie started looking around the little clearing she had carved out last night, taking a few steps and wincing as she felt a light pain shooting through her left leg as her foot sank a little into the soft soil. "The muddy ground is gonna slow my movements down a bit. At least my campsite is intact, maybe I can set up an area and keep it dry enough to reheat some food for the day. Reheated but cold food has to be better than one cooked meat or protein bars." she muttered to herself before she got to work.   
>Connie took great care as she grabbed the leaf blanket she had been draping over herself at night, hanging it up from the lower hanging limbs and vines of the area she had carved out, stretching it out only as far as she needed to. She smiled in satisfaction as she heard droplets of liquid hitting the leaves and gathering within the blanket.   
>With the blanket hanging overhead, Connie went back for her leaf bag and started pulling out what she needed for a fire, grabbing a few extra limbs to make the pile of wood larger and keep the top of the fire off the damp ground longer. With the pile of limbs set up, she got to work using her fire starting sticks to create the sparks she needed to ignite a fire.   
>Soon, Connie had the sparks going, transferring them carefully to the pile of wood below, smiling as the fire ignited. She could feel the heat radiating from the fire, warming up the area a little as it continued to burn.   
>With the fire in place, Connie got to work on setting up what she needed, sharpening three pieces of wood to use for reheating the meat, pulling out two of the large yellow leaves to wrap the food she heated a second time in, then she started skewering the meat upon the sharpened sticks, loading up as much on the sticks as she could without breaking them. Her mouth salivated as the meat heated back up, her anticipation for a good meal growing.   
>Once the meat was done heating back up, Connie placed two of the skewers on top of the yellow leaves on the ground, while she gently blew on the meat before placing the bits in her mouth, taking her time to enjoy her meat as she stayed crouched near the fire.   
>With her breakfast finished, Connie smiled as she took the meat off the other sticks and wrapped it in the yellow leaves. She extinguished her fire with the damp mud, covering the more burnt portions of the wood she had used while cutting away the parts that were still usable and placing them in her leaf bag. She was careful as she placed the wrapped up meat in the yellow leaves in her brown bag, so she could reach it easier when she wanted to eat another meal. "I hope I can find another dry spot instead of having to eat twice heated meat that's cold, but at least this way I know the meat doesn't have much bacteria alive on it."  
>Connie let out a sigh as she slung her bags onto her back, gently unfastened her leaf blanket from where she had it hanging, draped the dry side of the blanket over her body after shaking the moisture off of it, grabbed her sword from the muddy ground, and took one last look around the campsite to make sure she hadn't left anything important behind.   
>Once Connie was sure she wasn't leaving anything behind, she made her way back through the path she had slightly cut out last night. She smiled as she swung her sword and cut the path fully open now, no longer concerned with an alien beast getting to her while she slept, and not wanting to deal with the thorns on the vines anymore. It took her fifteen minutes of cutting to make her way out of the tangle of limbs and vines, but she eventually made it out of them and back into the forest properly.   
>Now out of the tangle of limbs and vines, Connie could feel drops of rain hitting her leaf blanket turned cloak more steadily. Around her, blurs of color went diving into the nearby bushes at the base of trees, or scurrying up the tree trunks. She couldn't help but giggle at seeing the smaller critters flee from her movements. "Can't blame them, there's some scary things on this world, at least two." she mused to herself as she turned her body to place the tangle of vines and limbs back to her left, then she starts making her way through the forest once more. Her shoes sink into the muddy soil with every step she takes, her left leg aching from where her injury still hasn't quite healed all the way yet, her body getting slightly chilled from the damp air around her. Still, she presses forward, determined to cover more ground today, to get closer to the white mountains she had seen in the distance from the shoreline and from the other mountain she had been on.   
>As Connie kept walking through the forest, minutes became an hour, the hour turned into two. A growing uneasy feeling started to gnaw at her gut. While she was still seeing the occasional flying blue rose creature, or the scampering of the smaller furry critters, she hadn't seen any of the larger ones since she woke up, and the movements of the smaller ones had lessened.   
>Connie pushed herself to pick up her walking pace as she pushed the feelings of dread aside and thought to herself. "No, don't worry, the rain is pretty heavy right now, it's probably too heavy for things to be out in. The larger ones are probably holed up wherever they make their homes." Still, she clutched her sword a little tighter and started looking around her environment a little more carefully.   
>Connie kept walking for another fifteen minutes before a rustling sound in a nearby bush made her stop cold. Her body tensed up as she turned her full attention to the noise, preparing herself to act.   
>Suddenly, a green blur came flying out of the bush. Connie jumped back in surprise as she shut her eyes and swung her sword in front of her, certain whatever it was was jumping for her. As the surprise wore off, she realized she didn't feel her sword connect with anything. Her eyes shot open as she looked around her for a brief moment, before her eyes fixated on two tiny green clouds that now floated in front of her, each one as large as her head. "Clouds? Why are clouds floating in the jungle?" she whispered out, her curiosity compelling her to get a closer look.   
>Connie's question and curiosity were soon answered as the two "clouds" floated back together and the shade of green they were started darkening. Tiny bolts of blue energy started dancing along the singular cloud, and Connie let out a gasp as she saw the energy condense into two shapes that resembled eyes, both starting directly at her and narrowed as if the cloud they were attached to was angry.   
>Connie slowly started backing away from the cloud as she realized the energy from it was starting to get closer to her body and was growing more powerful. The cloud itself was starting to grow larger as the energy's power increased.  
>Connie let out a nervous laugh as she started to back away from the cloud thing faster. "Hehheh, did......did I hurt you? Can a cloud even get hurt? ARE you even a cloud? Uh.....not important, I'm.....I'm sorry for cutting you? You scared me with that sudden movement." she spoke in an attempt to pacify.....whatever it was that was now fixated on her. She had never imagined anything like this cloud life form could exist, yet there it was, right before her eyes and mad.   
>Energy collected at the creature's mouth and opened up into a makeshift fanged mouth, a noise coming out of its new maw that sounded like a mixture of power lines crackling with energy and a loud scream. Connie's blood ran cold as she realized whatever it was wouldn't just let her go. Letting out her own scream of fear, she turned away from the cloud monster and dashed through the forest, thoughts flying through her mind. "Killer cloud aliens! Why is that a thing?! HOW am I suppose to fight that?! CAN I even fight that? I have to think of something to do if I can't shake it off my trail!"  
>Connie pushed herself to run as fast as she could, weaving around the trees, taking random turns, and doing her best to shake the cloud life-form she had found. As she ran, her feet and shoes were sinking deeper into the mud from the force of her steps, light shots of pain flowing through her leg with every step she took.  
>After thirty minutes of strait running and weaving, Connie dared to look behind her. Relief washed over her as she realized that, whatever that cloud was, it was no longer chasing her. She let out a sigh of relief before she tensed up again, a new realization hitting her. "I.......I made so many turns I don't know which way to go anymore. Stars, why'd that cloud thing have to chase me?!"  
>Connie let out a sigh of annoyance as she stood in the forest, looking around her while the rain kept pattering against the leaves above her, and falling to the ground around her. If she wanted to have any hope of finding her way to the white mountains she had seen, she'd need to figure out the safest way to regain her bearings. She would have to think of a plan on how to proceed.


	21. Regaining her bearings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie thinks of a way for her to discover which way she needs to go again quickly.

>Connie took a brief stop in the middle of the forest, sitting down at the base of a large red tree. She could feel the pain in her left leg start to die down as she sat, could feel the dampness of the soil underneath her against her legs and bottom as she sat in the mud. The sound of the rain hitting the leaves above her was oddly soothing, listening to it helped clear her mind as she dug through her bag for one of the two wrapped up bundles of meat she had reheated earlier that day. "I should eat while I try to figure out my course of action." Connie thought to herself as she let out a sigh.   
>Connie thought as she popped a piece of reheated seafood into her mouth and chewed it idly and continued thinking. "I know I need to find my bearings so I can get to the white mountains, but there's not many things I can do. I could retrace the path I ran, but if I do I could run into that cloud alien thing that started chasing me. I do NOT want to be shocked by that thing's energy."  
>"Without retracing my steps, there's only two things I can do from here. I can choose a direction to walk and hope I'm not moving backwards, hope I get to the edge of the forest or find a river to follow out. The other thing is climb a tree to get a high vantage point and see exactly where I am and which way I need to go."   
>Connie let out a sigh as she finished off another piece of meat and whispered out loud. "I have to get to those mountains as soon as possible, especially if it keeps raining. I need a dry place to cook my food, or I'm in trouble. I got lucky yesterday with that thicket of vines and branches, but I can't count on getting lucky like that every day."   
>As Connie finished off the reheated seafood that had been wrapped up in a yellow leaf, she stuffed the leaf back in her leaf bag and stood up, eyeing the tree she was resting under. "Only one thing to do to make sure I get to the mountains in the next day or two. I don't like the thought of climbing a large tree that's slick with precipitation, but it's the most logical thing to do."   
>Connie placed her leaf bag on the ground for a moment, digging out a few lengths of golden vines from within, keeping the vines clutched in her hands as she threw the leaf bag back on her back. Connie grinned as she wrapped the vines around the thick red tree truck, to help her stay on the tree easier as she climbed. She grabbed an end of vines in each hand, and started climbing up the tall tree.   
>Connie could feel the vines and her feet slipping a little as she made her way up the tree, her left leg slightly throbbing in pain from the effort of the climb. The rain falling through the leaves and limbs of the tree gently splattered against her body in irregular intervals as she climbed, the frequency of impacts increasing as she climbed higher.   
>After ten minutes of climbing, Connie let out a sigh as she reached the lowest branch on the tree. "Here comes the tricky part." she thought to herself as she steeled herself mentally for what she needed to do. She slowly moved her left hand towards the branch, still keeping a hold of the vines as she moved, wrapping her legs around the thick trunk as tightly as she could manage. Her heat began to beat faster as she laid her closed fist on the branch. "This is it. Time to make the move." she thought to herself as she wrapped the vines around the limb, then let go of the part she was holding on to. Her heart skipped a beat for a moment as she grabbed onto the limb, the vines uncoiling a little as she transitioned, but staying wrapped around the limb.   
>Connie let out a sigh of relief as she used her right hand to wrap the vines around her waist, then made the move to bring her right arm to the limb. She could feel the vines pulling tighter from the shift of weight, the tightness fading as she grabbed a hold of the limb with her right hand, now supporting her weight on both arms.  
>With both arms around the thicker limb, it was easy enough for Connie to pull herself onto the limb, bringing her whole body to stand upon it. Much to her relief, the limb was supporting her weight perfectly fine. With her foothold secure, she looked up the trunk, eyeing the limbs that remained above her.  
>"I can use the limbs above me as anchors from now on." Connie thought to herself as she unwrapped the vines from around the limb she was standing on. She let out a little grunt as she started tossing individual ends of vines into the limbs above, watching them fly up and wrap around the limbs on their way back down. She smiled as she gently fed the vines up, to bring the other end down lower to where she could grab a hold of them once more, pulling out extra lengths of vine as she needed them.  
>Slowly, she made her way up the tree, moving from limb to limb as she ascended the tree, unwrapping and reusing vines as she climbed up, ever higher, the rain hitting her harder as she got ever higher, the light around her growing brighter as less things were between her and the cloud covered alien sun.   
>After two hours of climbing, Connie finally broke through the canopy of the pink and purple leaves in the tree tops. She could now see the alien world around her clearly. Strait ahead of her gaze, she could see a rolling orange landscape, portions of the land submerged under large yellow pools of liquid.   
>"Those must be the hillsides I saw earlier. if those are there, then the mountains are to my left." Connie thought to herself as she moved her gaze slowly to her left. Her heart leapt with joy as she saw the large white expanse of mountains, far cleared than she had seen them before. She could see a few caves dotting the side of the mountain, close to large thick red limbs that touched the mountainside from the tree tops. She observed the amount of trees between her and the mountains from up high, and smiled. "Looks like I can get to them in a day and a half if I push myself. I'll be able to have a dry spot to camp again soon."   
>Connie briefly considered climbing back down the tree to walk the rest of the way on foot before she shook the notion aside. "Climbing back down is going to be risky, and I might get lost again if I have to run from something else. The limbs on the trees intertwine with each other up here, I should be able to get onto the mountain without climbing back down. I've slept in a tree before, I can do it again. Just gotta be careful of how I move."  
>Connie made her way down from the top of the tree onto the closest branch below her. She made her way slowly along the thicker tree limbs within the canopy, pushing leaves aside and watching her footing as she proceeded in the direction of the mountains. She could feel the limbs under her swaying a little as she moved, from her motions and from the wind of the alien world. More than once, she felt her feet start sliding upon the limbs as she transferred from one branch to another, her heart stopping momentarily as she regained her balance. Still, she kept moving as the rain fluctuated in severity and the meager light that was filtering through the clouds and leaves started growing dimmer.   
>As the light around Connie started to fade faster as the sun set behind the tree line, coloring the green clouds above her in shades of red, purple, blue, and yellow, she let out another sigh as she realized she needed to climb down a little further, to keep herself as dry as she could. She made sure to take it slowly, working her way down the limbs where it was easiest to do so, where she could simply step down a few inches onto another limb. She kept climbing down like this until the steps became too wide for her to risk taking this late in the day. "Guess I'm tying myself into the tree here." Connie thought to herself as she started slipping the leaf blanket off of her body.  
>Connie used the blanket of leaves to create a makeshift canopy above her, making sure the blanket was tied in a way to allow the rain to roll off of it instead of accumulating within it too much. Her next step was to tie herself to the trunk of the tree, wrapping the vines around the thick trunk and around her waist, tying them tight after she sat down on the sturdy tree limb below her. Her next step was to tie her bags and her legs to the tree trunk too, securing those lines as tight as she could get them without the vines digging into her legs too much.  
>Connie hesitated a moment as she dug the last bit of meat she had reheated that day. She briefly considered saving it for tomorrow before she decided against it. "Leaving it cold overnight would undo the work reheating it this morning did anyways, may as well eat it now." she thought to herself before unwrapping the meat and stuffing it in her mouth a piece at a time, eating as fast as she dared to try and finish her meal before the world around her went pitch dark.   
>With her meal finished, Connie proceeded to stuff the leaf that had wrapped the meat into one of her bags. She let out a light yawn as she stretched her arms out and started relaxing her mind and her body, taking one last look towards where she knew the mountains were before she started letting her eyes close. "Tomorrow, I make it to those mountains......no matter what." she idly thought as she was lulled into sleep by the sound of the rain hitting the leaves above her. It was the end of the eighth day on the alien world for Connie. She only had six more days to go before she met her two week goal.


	22. Day Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie's ninth day on the alien world, where she makes her way towards the white mountain range once more upon waking up.

>The ninth morning dawned on the alien world. Connie roused herself from her sleep as light filtered through the leaves and limbs of the treetop she was sleeping in. She stretched her limbs out for a moment as she yawned, the sound of the rain hitting the leaves above her and falling around her made her sorely tempted to go back to sleep for a few more moments. She pushed the temptation aside and out of her mind before she started untying the vines from around her waist and legs, a thought running through her mind. "I promised myself I'd get to those mountains today, I intend to do it."  
>With her limbs untied from the treetops, Connie cautiously stood up on the tree limb she had been sitting on. She was thankful the leaf blanket she had tied up last night had kept the limb and herself mostly dry, allowing her to stand without much fear of slipping or falling. With a smile on her face, she reached for where her bags and sword were tied up, reaching into her brown bag to dig out her protein bars she had packed for the adventure.   
>Connie let out a sigh of annoyance as she pulled out the last four protein bars she had, muttering to herself. "Four left. Well, that's enough for today and one more meal if I really need it. As much as I want to cook something, lighting a fire in a treetop is a bad idea, even if it is damp from rain. I'll have to make due with this, just another reason to get to those mountains today."   
>Connie shoved two of the four bars into her pants pockets, placed the third one back into her brown bag within the pocket, and started unwrapping the last bar in her hands to have as part of her breakfast. She reached out to some of the lower hanging branches around her, plucking the pink and purple leaves off of the limbs to add to her meal, chewing the leaves and protein bar thoroughly before swallowing the blended mush.  
>With her breakfast finished, Connie reached up to untie the leaf blanket she had tied up into a canopy overhead. She carefully undid the knots she had tied, not wanting to tear the leaves or destroy the vines if she could help it, watching her footing on the tree limbs as she made her way from corner to corner. When she had the vines untied from the corners, she gently pulled the blanket free from the limbs she had used to shape it into a little dome above her, wrapping the leaf blanket around her body as she freed it.   
>Leaf blanket draped over her body into a raincoat, Connie proceeded to put the leaf bags onto her back, then turned her attention to retrieve her tied up sword, stuffing the vines into her leaf bag as she untied her sword from the tree trunk. With her sword in hand, she looked down from the top of the tree to the forest floor below her.   
>Connie briefly considered trying to make her way down to the forest floor before she shook the notion aside. "Climbing down would take a lot of time to do safely, and I might get lost in the forest again. Better to stay up here and be careful." she thought to herself as she took her eyes off the forest floor and back towards the treetop she was in. She had her plan in mind, and determination to fuel her. She started making her way through the treetops and towards where she knew the white mountains were.   
>Connie maneuvered her way from limb to limb through the treetops, pushing some branches aside, cutting others away and letting them drop to the forest floor below her, steadily making progress in as strait a line as she could manage towards her destination. The sounds of critters chirping, squeaking, and chattering to each other sounding through the forest, from below and around her. The rustling of the leaves around her sometimes had her on guard, ready for anything that might try to come at her from any direction.   
>More than once during her walk between breakfast and lunch, Connie was startled into swinging at something that popped out through the leaves and limbs around her. The first time, it was one of the flying creatures she had seen below, its red wings flapping to propel its blue flower-like body from below the tree top, through the branches, and towards the top of the canopy. Connie heard a little screech as the tip of her blade nicked one of the creature's little feet, but the creature didn't stop its flight. Connie stood bewildered for a moment as she regained her composure from the startling experience.   
>The second time Connie got a scare wasn't as innocent. From her left, an orange creature had lunged at her, a larger version of the lizard she had seen on the forest floor. This one wasn't the size of her hand, instead it was a third of her size, it's sharp rainbow hued fangs bared and its crystal-shaped claws pointed directly at her as it made its move, Connie's reaction swing caught the orange lizard between its blue eyes, cleaving its body in half down the middle. Purple blood splattered along the red tree limbs as the halves of the creature continued flying forward, its blue, green, and yellow hued claws scraping at Connie's arms slightly as the pieces flew past her and down through the tree limbs beneath her. Connie grumbled out in annoyance as she looked over the scrapes on her arms. "Guess those lizards aren't so harmless after all. I was right to not pick the smaller one up when I saw it."  
>The third time Connie got startled before her lunch was by something she hadn't seen before, something she stumbled on as she pushed a few green limbs aside with the red ones. The creatures were a light green in hue, resting in the limbs of one of the few green trees that were growing in the forest. Their bodies looked like a tangle of vines coiled up into a ball, with six vines sprouting from their bodies down towards the tree limbs, acting like tentacle legs that allowed the creatures to move. On their backs, lines of golden quills shook, rattling out a warning as a small protrusion pushed out from the green vine mass of a body, a golden beak spreading open like a four petaled flower blooming, an unearthly screech escaping its maw as thin golden appendages poked out of its maw, each one tipped in tiny white barbs. Connie took one look at them and backed away slowly, letting the limbs fall back into place where she could. "Nope, not dealing with those things." she thought to herself as she calculated the best way to move around the spot they were sleeping at in her mind.  
>Taking the trip around the creatures that looked like a cluster of vines had taken Connie a lot longer to do safely than she had hoped. She had had to backtrack a little before she could maneuver into a line of trees to the right of where the aliens were nesting, having to climb up closer to the uppermost limbs again before she could make her way from tree limb to tree limb, doing her best to maneuver in a way that took her away from the other nearby green tree. She didn't know for sure if there'd be more of the green viney aliens in the other green tree, but she didn't want to waste time and effort backing away from another group of them if they were there. "Better to avoid them entirely, I don't want to be impaled." she thought to herself as she made her way through her detour and back on her intended route.   
>Connie took a brief pause in walking to enjoy a second protein bar for the day, pulling more of the purple and pink leaves off of the trees around her to go with it, filling her stomach as much as she dared to. She didn't want to risk eating and moving at the same time, she knew all it took was one moment of distraction or one slip to send her on a nasty fall. The distance she could cover while eating wasn't worth the risk in her mind.   
> Shortly after finishing up a lunch, Connie got back to walking along the tree limbs, carefully moving from branch to branch as she got ever closer to the white mountains. She made her way up to the tree tops once more, to make sure she was still going the right way. Rain pattered against her face as she broke through the tops of the trees once more, her eyes fixating on the dark green clouds above her before she turned her attention towards her objective. Her heart leapt with joy as she saw the distance between her and the mountain range was relatively short. "Just a few more dozen trees to get through, I'll be there by nightfall for sure!" she thought to herself excitedly as she made her way back down to the more tightly intertwined branches.   
>As Connie kept making her way towards the mountains, she took notice of how quiet things started getting around her as she got closer to the mountains. The chirping, chattering, and other ambient critter noises had slowly gone quiet. The leaves around her had gone quieter as well, only her own pushing of limbs was creating rustles. Other than her own noises and the sound of the rain falling, the forest had grown eerily quiet, creating an uneasy feeling in Connie's gut. "It only gets this quiet when something dangerous in nearby. I hope whatever it is is on the ground, I don't want to fight up here." she thought to herself as she gripped her sword tighter and started moving a little slower, preparing herself for any sudden movements.  
>It wasn't until Connie had walked for three hours after eating her lunch that she realized why things were so quiet around her and what it was that had the animals spooked. As she pushed aside another cluster of red limbs, she froze for a moment as she stared into a small spot that had been cleared out within the tree tops. A massive red body was curled up on top of the splintered remains of a few tree tops. Connie couldn't help but think it looked like a dragon from one of those fantasy stories she had read as a kid, but with a few distinct differences. Instead of scales, the creature's skin seemed to be completely smooth, shining from the brief rays of light that were shining through the clouds onto its skin, slick with the still falling rain. The creature had three tails sprouting from its body, the tip of each one ending in a cluster of bright green spikes. Connie couldn't see the creature's full legs, but she could see green claws protruding from each of its six feet. Upon the beast's back, two large wings sprouted out, their appearance looking like pink and purple feathers had been tied together. Its head was the most distinctive thing, shaped more like a parrot's head and beak than a large reptile's head.   
>Connie couldn't help but whisper out in surprise as she took in the monster's slumbering form. "Stars......look at the size of that thing. It has to be covering at least seven different tree tops, no make that nine. No wonder things were so quiet around here......waking that thing up would be the last mistake you ever made." Backing away slowly, she let the tree limb she had pushed aside settle back in to where it had sat before.   
>After taking a detour to get around the slumbering dragon-like alien, the rest of Connie's day went rather smoothly. The sky around her was beginning to grow dark by the time she made her way to the mountain from the treetops, stepping off the limbs onto the hard sturdy stone excitedly and with a wide smile on her face. "At last, made it! I'll be able to really see what's around me once I get to the top of this thing." She spoke out in her excitement, walking along the stone mountainside and towards a nearby shallow opening in earnest.   
>Connie took a brief look around the shallow opening in the mountain before she smiled in satisfaction. The opening was just large enough to hide in, while not continuing back too far into the mountain to where she'd get lost. She quickly got to work setting her bags down, to pull out what she'd need to cook a meal and to wind down for the day.   
>As the last of the natural light faded from the world around her, Connie was savoring a warm meal of seafood cooked by campfire, enjoying the flavors thoroughly after two strait meals of protein bars and leaves and filling her belly to the fullest, no longer concerned with needing to watch her balance.   
>After her meal, she put out her fire, moved as far away from the cave entrance as she could, and curled up under the leaf blanket that was draped around her body, resting her head on her bags and leaving her sword to rest by her side as she listened to the rain hitting the mountainside rocks. It was the end of her ninth day on the alien world, and she was happy she had achieved what she had wanted to that day.


	23. Day Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie surveys her surroundings, and makes a plan for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning, this chapter is long and is another full day. Plan your reading time accordingly.

>The tenth morning dawned on the alien planet. Connie uncurled her body from her sleeping position and slowly stretched her limbs out, letting out a light yawn as she opened her eyes.   
>A smile crossed her face as she became more fully awake and her senses came back into focus. Outside the mouth of the cave, while it was still raining gently, Connie could see bits of orange sky beyond the green clouds. "Finally, the rain is breaking up. That'll make things easier." she thought to herself as she started digging through her bags for her morning meal.  
>Connie's smile soon faded as she laid her hands on her reserve of seafood. Compared to how it had felt last night, the meat was much slicker, almost slimy in texture. Pulling her hand out of the bag, she took a light sniff at the slime coating her hand and retched in disgust for a moment, letting out an annoyed sigh and a whispered swear as she regained her composure. "Dang it, I knew four days was unlikely, but I was hoping the seafood I caught would still be good. Good thing I still have two protein bars left."  
>Grumbling in displeasure, Connie reached into her brown bag and pulled out one of the last two bars she had, unwrapping it and stuffing the trash into the compartment with the rest of the wrappers. She pulled out a few of the longer pink and purple leaves that were still fixated on the limbs in her leaf bag, wrapping them around the bar and chewing the leaves and bar thoroughly. It wasn't the breakfast she had been hoping for, but it'd have to do.  
>With her morning meal consumed, Connie wrapped the leaf blanket around her body again, threw her bags on her back, picked up her sword, and proceeded to exit the cave.  
>Once outside, Connie started looking around, her eyes adjusting to the more direct light that was filtering through and around the storm clouds, shielding her eyes with her arms as they adjusted. Once her eyes had readjusted to the light, she decided on what she wanted to do first.   
>"The first thing I want to know is how close I am to the shore. If I'm close, I could fish up some new food from a lower part of the mountains, hopefully." Connie thought to herself as she looked off to the right. Much to her dismay, she could indeed see the ocean, but not the shoreline. Getting to the beach would require her to travel along the base of several other mountains. "Figures, that would have been too easy." she muttered to herself.  
>Turning her mind away from the shoreline, the next thing Connie wanted to check was which peak in the mountain chain would be the best one to try and scale for a better look at the world around her. Her eyes wandered along the mountain peaks and slopes, scanning each one carefully and analyzing how difficult they'd be to climb in her mind compared to how high the peaks likely were.   
>From the top of a mountain three peaks to her left, Connie caught sight of something glinting near the peak. "Huh, that's odd." she thought to herself. "I haven't seen anything else shine like that on this world before. That peak's close to being the tallest around me too, but that slope is going to be a problem....certainly a top contender for which one I choose. I'm not climbing a mountain without a food supply though."   
>With that thought, Connie turned her attention away from the peaks and back towards the forest, to assess where she should try and climb down. Eyeing the treetops for a moment, Connie felt a chill run through her body as she caught sight of a large bare spot along the tree tops, the wood splintered into pieces and formed into what looked like a huge bird's nest in her eyes. It wasn't the sight of that that made Connie nervous though, rather, it was what WASN'T there anymore.   
>"That.......that's where that dragon thing was sleeping, isn't it? Stars, that thing is massive, and now it's awake and flying around who knows where. If that thing comes back and decides to come after me while I'm climbing, I'll be in serious trouble." Connie thought to herself as she swallowed hard. She really didn't want to have to fight something that large if it could be avoided. She hoped that wherever it had gone, it wouldn't be back for a few days.  
>Moving past the thoughts of the giant dragon thing flying around in the skies, Connie turned her attention towards the sloping base of the mountain she was on currently. She could see it was a bit of a steep slope, but there were also tree limbs growing into the rocks below, which would give her some steady platforms to use going down and climbing back up if she needed them. "Guess I'm climbing down here."  
>Connie took advantage of the nature of the slope to slide down to the nearest tree limb with ease, eyeing the areas below her for a moment before she slid gently down to the next limb. She continued this process until she came to the lowest limb she could slide to. She was still a ways off the ground, but the slope was starting to become gentler in nature now. She smiled as she dug her fingers into the rocky mountainside and slowly climbed her way down to the gentler slope portion. Once there, it was decently easy for her to make her way off the mountain and onto the forest floor with minimal exertion.  
>Letting out a sigh of relief, Connie got to work looking around the forest floor. She was looking any signs of wildlife passing through regularly, things that would show her where a decent place to set up snares or sit in waiting for something to come along would be.   
>Connie kept looking back as she made her way further away from the mountains. "I do need food, but I need to keep the mountains in view so I don't get lost in the forest again. I need to get back to the base of them at least before night falls, there's probably caves or divots I could use to take shelter if I can't climb back up the lower slope today."  
>After an hour and a half of walking around, Connie picked up on the sound of water flowing in the distance. Excitedly, she rushed towards the source of the sound, a smile growing on her face as she drew closer to the noise and the source came into focus. Running through the forest was a small stream, heading towards the direction Connie knew the planet's ocean was. Seeing the yellow liquid rushing along the ground in the small stream made Connie happy, especially when she caught sight of several smaller critter tracks in the mud going to and from the stream. "Here we go, a stream and some fresh tracks. Smaller critters have been through here recently, there's a good chance they'll be back through. This is the perfect area to set up some snare traps."  
>Connie paused for a moment, reaching into her bag for a tree limb to carve as she looked for a truly ideal place to set up a snare. She knew she needed to either find some small saplings around the stream, or she needed to set up fallen larger limbs and steady them in the ground instead.   
>Fortunately for her, she was able to locate a few saplings along the stream, spaced out far enough to allow her to use them all for her traps. Pausing at the base of one, Connie sat still as she carved at the tree limb in her hand, segmenting it into a few pieces and carving the appropriate notches in each segment, making sure they fit together easily, but would also slide apart easily when something stepped into the traps she was about to set up.   
>Sticking a longer notched limb into the ground, Connie looked up at the top of the thin sapling and smiled. She reached into her brown bag and pulled out a few lengths of the brown seaweed she had picked up on the beach, the pieces she had been using as fishing line. She tied a few of them together to form a length that would be long enough to keep the sapling pulled tight without snapping the branch, then she reached up to tie the seaweed line around the sapling, making sure it was tight and the line wouldn't snap easily if a critter thrashed around too wildly.   
>With the line secure on the sapling, Connie tied the other end of the seaweed line to one of her other notched key pegs, then pulled the roped down, bending the sapling as the two notched pegs drew closer to each other. When the pegs notched together, Connie smiled. She finished up her trap by tying a seaweed loop around the peg attached to the line tied to the sapling, and baited the loop with a few various leaf bits from the leaves around the giant flowers she had encountered. "Hopefully these leaves are enticing enough for something to come after. They're certainly rare enough to come by." she muttered aloud before moving on to the next sapling.  
>Connie repeated the process on the five other sapling she had found, working as quickly and quietly as she could, and making a mental note in her mind of which way the liquid of the stream was flowing, to ensure she could find the traps again when she needed to.   
>Traps set up, Connie moved away from the stream a few yards and begins looking around her environment, looking for signs of movement and her sword clutched firmly in hand. "I might have traps set up, but I need to be safe. If I can take down a larger critter safely, I'll be sure to have food, even if the traps fail."  
>Connie proceeded to wander through the forest, sticking close to the stream and keeping her eyes peeled for anything large she could safely hunt. Unfortunately for her, most of what she saw were smaller furry critters, darting around the trees a few yards away from her and moving swiftly through the landscape as gentle drops of rain kept falling through the leaves at a significantly slower place. "Maybe a few of the critters darting past me will fall to one of my snares." Connie comforted herself with that thought as she kept walking.  
>Eventually, hunger started gnawing at her stomach once more. Connie let out an annoyed sigh as she paused, briefly considering stuffing the last protein bar in her mouth before she decided against it. "I need to hold off on that if I can. Maybe one of my snares managed to catch something." she thought to herself as she turned around and hurried to retrace her steps back towards the stream to check her traps.   
>The first three traps Connie checked were empty, which made her grow more and more tempted to just eat the protein bar and get back to hunting. The fourth trap she checked however, made her glad she hadn't. Within the loop of the snare and hanging in the air was a small critter. Connie couldn't help but think it looked like a giant pillbug, its body segmented into three parts, six thin red legs thrashing around, the main part of its body colored a light pink hue with blue spots on its back. The creature itself was about the size of Connie's head, and it was letting out little cries that sounded like a mixture of a puppy wailing and a cat meowing.  
>For a moment, Connie hesitated. The sounds it was making tugged at her heart, and the bug-like creature itself was oddly cute to her. Still, she knew she had to take advantage of what she caught. Sword in hand, she faced the critter and whispered out. "Sorry about this, but I need to eat. Your sacrifice won't be in vain."  
>A single quick slash is all it took. Her sword cut through the critter's hide, cutting it in half, bringing a halt to the squirming, and allowing one half of the critter to fall to the ground, thudding lifelessly as bright green blood pooled out onto the brownish orange grass below.   
>Connie wasted no time freeing the still hanging segment from the loop she had tied before resetting the trap, putting more bait out before picking up the halves of the critter and moving away from the reset trap. Once she was a decent distance away, she got to work building a fire, the rainfall around her no longer hard enough to douse the flames she was building. She got to work carving through the creature, cutting its body into bits of meat small enough to cook easily on the end of a sharpened stick. The smell that came off the pink meat as it cooked reminded Connie of when her mother made tomato based pasta dishes, like a mixture of lasagna baking and spaghetti sauce cooking around the beef her mother used for the meat of her meatballs. It was enough to make her mouth salivate in anticipation as she watched the pink meat grow darker, turning almost red in nature before she pulled it out of the flames.   
>Connie blew on a piece a few times to cool it off before popping it into her mouth. She wasn't disappointed by its flavor, matching the tang of the tomato sauce, mixed with bits of garlic and onion, with a little bit of a sour aftertaste, like a lemon had been lightly squeezed over the meat. She licked her lips as she started cooking up a few more pieces of the critter to get her fill while she slid the rest of the pieces off of the stick she had already cooked up.   
>Connie was about to start in on the second stick when she heard a rumble in the distance and felt the ground under her shaking. As the vibrations under her grew stronger and more frequent, Connie scrambled away from where she had been sitting and her fire, just in time for a large form to come bursting from the ground.   
>"Oh you CAN'T be serious!?" Connie shouted out in disbelief as she got a good look at what had just burst from the ground. It was remarkably similar to the critter she had just killed, but still very different. This one was far larger, at least Connie's size in body length. Its pink body was segmented far more, at least thirty blue legs moving on each side of it. While the smaller one hadn't had any eyes and barely had pincers for a mouth, the critter before her had two large mandibles clicking angrily in the air, two long antenna on its head twitching around for a moment before the beast looked down at the remains of the critter Connie had killed, then turned around and looked right at Connie with its beady red eyes. It let out an unearthy screech, sounding like a mix of nails on a chalkboard and nails in a garbage disposal.   
>Connie gritted her teeth as she started to get a headache from the noise. "Must be the mother." she grumbled to herself as she readied her body for a battle. "Just my luck......reminds me of the bird blob I wanted to eat as Stevonnie.....but now's not the time to think about that!"  
>Connie eyed the giant alien pillbug warily, prepared for the creature to make its next move. She didn't have to wait long. With another screech, the alien bug rolled its body up into a ball and came barreling towards her at a rapid pace. Connie leaped aside, narrowly avoiding getting hit, stumbling on the ground as she landed before she regained her balance and turned towards the creature. Much to her horror, it had collided with a nearby tree, creating cracks in the red tree trunk that ran up a few feet.  
>"Great, if I get hit with that, I'm going to end up with broken bones. But......it can't see while it's curled up, can it?" Connie thought to herself, her question answered as the creature uncurled its body and looked around again, screeching angrily as it caught sight of her once more and curled up again. Connie stepped aside a few steps before it started rolling, her theory confirmed quickly as the creature rolled swiftly again and collided with another tree. "It must be used to taking things on in tunnels or confined spaces. Its out of its element in the open. I can use this." Connie mused to herself, considering all her options carefully as the beast uncurled once more.  
>An idea came to her as the creature looked at her once more with anger in its eyes, clicking its mandibles wildly before curling back up. Once more, Connie stepped aside before the beast started rolling, but this time, she tracked the trajectory it'd be taking based on where she had been standing, to see which tree it'd crash into. Smiling, she started running towards the tree she was sure it'd be hitting, staying out of the beast's direct line path as she made her way to it. Sure enough, the creature started rolling as Connie was still running towards the tree, the creature's body rushing past her as they both closed in on the tree.  
>A loud crack sounded through the air as the creature collided with the new tree, harder than it had the other two, the cracks spreading up the trunk further and wider. Connie readied her blade as she got near the beast.   
>The creature uncurled its body, and Connie made her move. She thrust her sword into the freshly exposed belly of the creature, running her sword down the creature's body and cutting a long gash into the creature before she sprung back. The creature started crying out in pain and thrashing around, green blood flowing from its body and splattering onto the ground and the trees around itself as it started bleeding out.   
>Connie hummed in satisfaction as the creature's thrashing died down, She approached it slowly as the creature's movements came to a stop, poking it with her blade a few times to make sure it was really dead. "Rest easy. Your death will assure I don't have to kill any more of your little ones to survive. You'll be more than enough."  
>With the large bug felled, Connie emptied her pack of the spoiled seafood she was still carrying, then she got to work carving into the creature, cutting chunks away and cooking them up, stuffing as much cooked meat into her bag as she could fit while stuffing a few more pieces into her mouth.   
>When she had all she could carry from the giant bug, Connie made her way back to the stream and her snares. One by one, she cut through the seaweed lines that were holding the saplings in place, disarming her traps so no other critters would get trapped. "Can't carry anymore meat with me, why kill something that doesn't need to be killed?" she whispered to herself as she cut through the first of the snares.  
>The last snare she had cut down wasn't empty. Within the loop, another of the smaller alien bugs struggled, thrashing its six little blue legs wildly and letting out its cries for help. Connie sighed as she cut the creature down, watching it fall to the ground with a thud. She whispered out to it. "You're lucky, you get to live because a larger one of you died. Make the most of your lucky break, little one." For a moment, she could have swore the creature let out a chirp of understanding, but she shook it off as she walked away. It was a silly notion, there was no way the creature had really understood her, right?  
>Connie started making her way back towards the mountains, the world around her growing darker as she walked. She let out an annoyed sigh as she realized what it meant. "Guess I won't be climbing up tonight. Gotta find shelter at ground level. At least the rain has almost stopped falling. A drier day tomorrow will be a great help."  
>By the time Connie got to the base of the mountains and managed to find a cave to sleep in, the planet itself was almost completely dark and her stomach was rumbling. She managed to find a cave that went back a good distance, taking a few turns within it and coming to a dead end, where she set up her camp for the night, partaking in some of the meat she had recently cooked from the fallen alien bug, then extinguishing the fire after setting up her usual sleeping area.   
>Bags under her head and leaf blanket draped over her body, Connie slowly settled in and drifted off to sleep. It was the end of her tenth day on the alien world, and she was looking forward to seeing more of it from the top of another mountain tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another day down, another day closer to the end. Four days left, one day a week is my goal. I hope you guys can still enjoy this tale, and will enjoy the ending I create for it when we get there.


	24. Day Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The entirety of day eleven on the alien world. Connie starts her climb up one of the mountains, towards the peak where something is shining in the sunlight.

>Rays of light shined into the cave as the eleventh morning dawned on the alien world. Connie woke up with a light yawn and a slow stretch as she was roused by the light flowing into the cave. She cracked a small smile as her senses started registering what was going on, or rather, what was no longer going on outside.   
>"Finally, the rain stopped. No more worrying about being soaked or having to find a dry spot to make a fire." she muttered to herself aloud before she went about making herself something for breakfast, starting a fire within the cave and wrapping some of the alien bug meat she had gathered yesterday in some of her remaining leaves before sticking it all into the fire to let it roast and warm up a little. The familiar saucy smell of the meat once more wafted into the air, mixed by the sweet smell of the purple and pink leaves she had wrapped around the smaller bites. The resulting mix of flavor was an odd balance of sweetness and tomato based pasta, but it was something Connie found herself enjoying as she filled her belly.  
>With her stomach full, she put her fire out and gathered her bags, folding the leaf blanket up and stashing it in her brown bag for the first time in days. her smile widened as she undid the leaf that was tied around her head to serve as a hood, her hair once more set free and flowing down her back. Connie hesitated for a moment before discarding the leaf that had been tied around her. As much as she hated to waste potential food, it had been touching her for a few days. She was certain the leaf had absorbed some of her sweat by now, the thought of tasting it for herself making her gag a little.   
>With her bags on her back, her supplies repacked, and her sword in hand, Connie made her way out of the little cave and back out into the open. Her eyes squinted for a moment as she acclimatized herself to the sun shining through the trees more directly upon her. She sighed in relief as she looked up at the sky, once more seeing the vast expanse of orange above, a few wisps of green clouds hanging in the sky above, but no longer as dark or large as they had been while it was raining.  
>Connie took in the warm rays of the sun for a moment before she turned her attention towards the mountain chain she was now standing at the base of. Her eyes scanned the tops once more, looking for the gleaming she had caught sight of previously. Sure enough, the gleam was still coming off strong from the top of the mountain two peaks over. "Of course it'd be the largest one of the closest ones, and these mountains are twice as large as the previous one I was on top of." she muttered under her breath. "But I want to find out what that shining is. If nothing else, climbing the tallest mountain will give me the greatest view of everything around me, that'll help me survive the last few days."  
>With a plan in mind, Connie started sprinting along the base of the mountains, glancing up towards the peaks every so often to ensure she got to the base of the mountain she wanted to climb. Soon enough, she was at the base of the mountain that was drawing her curiosity.   
>"This is going to be a pain to climb up." Connie thought to herself as she eyed the slope, spotting a few limbs that grew into the mountainside at the lower portions. While the slope wasn't the steepest thing she'd ever climbed at the bottom, she'd have to make sure she adjusted her climb as she went up, to avoid having a tree limb directly above her.   
>Connie's plan was a simple one. Position herself to the side of the lowest limb she could see, climb up, pull herself onto the tree limb, then adjust her climb to continue up the lowest portion of the mountain as safely as possible.   
>Connie's fingertips and the toes of her shoes dug into the gravely mountainside as she started her climb, sword strapped to her back under her bags so she wouldn't have to worry about losing it. Little bits of gravel crumbled down the slope as she hoisted herself up slowly, taking her time to ensure she didn't lose her hold or her footing. While the rain had stopped, the rocks were still a little slick and loose from the rainfall. The last thing she wanted to do was cause a rock slide and get caught up in it herself.  
>As Connie got to the lowest of the tree limbs, she let out a small sigh of relief, glad to have a moment of solid footing under her again. She took a short break on the limb, eyeing the slope and the limbs above her, planning out the next part of her climb up the mountain carefully. She spotted some portions of the slope that were crumbling without her interference to the left of her as she eyed the slope carefully. "Not going that way. Right it is." she thought to herself before she took a deep breath and continued her climbing.   
>As Connie climbed higher, she started to notice small bits of movement through the tree tops. Some of the smaller and furrier blue creatures she had seen before were skittering through the tree, some of them gnawing on bits of leaves as they moved, others holding strange green bits in their mouths that Connie didn't recognize. Little pieces of what the creatures were chewing on were falling through the tree limbs, flaking onto her body and down around her, making her mutter out in annoyance.   
>"Blasted little things, the specks of their meals are making my climb harder. Ugh, it's getting in my eyes." she fought the urge to wipe the specks away from her face, instead giving her head a little shake before she continued her climb. As she moved higher, the critters started taking more of a notice of her, and started to leave the general area, lessening the amount of stuff falling onto her as a result.   
>The sun was starting to really bare down on Connie the higher she climbed and the closer to the top of the tree that was mingling with the side of the mountain she got. She noticed the world around her was starting to feel a lot hotter than it had been the prior days, and it was causing her to sweat more than she had been. "Too much humidity from the rain." she thought to herself. "It's making things feel hotter than they are. Gonna have to be cautious when I get to the steeper parts or the mountain."  
>Connie smiled a little as she hoisted herself above the top of the tree line. The climb was starting to get a little steeper now, but above her, she could see a place on the mountain about thirty more feet up, where the slope plateaued into what she was hoping would be a good place to take a longer pause, to wipe away her sweat and evaluate how the rest of the climb would go. Her determination to reach the spot sooner fueled her climb, making her climb a little faster up the slope, creating a steady stream of falling gravels as she climbed now.   
>As Connie hoisted herself up to the flatter surface she let out a sigh of relief as her stomach grumbled. She made her way away from the edge of the plateau on the mountain, bringing herself closer to the next slope before she sat down, unstrapped her sword from her back, and pulled her bags off to set them on the ground. She took a brief glance up the mountain and sighed, unable to spot another place to rest from where she was standing.  
>"Would've been nice to have been closer to the top before I stopped for lunch, but it can't be helped. Better to eat while I can rather than pushing myself." Connie thought to herself as she started a fire to prepare her lunch with. As she once more heated up meat for her meal, she couldn't help looking out past the edge of the plateau on the mountain she was on, back out over the treetops. It was strange to her, seeing the yellow ocean to the right now, looking over the pink and purple treetops, her eyes lingering once more on the bare spot that had been created from the large dragon like creature before moving on.   
>"It's beautiful here, at least. Even if the creatures are on the strange and deadly side." Connie thought to herself as she finished heating up a few pieces of meat, popping them into her mouth and chewing as she watched a few of the blue batlike flower creatures take flight from the treetops a good forty yards away, flying off and forming a V formation as they got higher in the sky. It was odd for her, seeing such alien creatures behave like creatures back on Earth in small ways. The implications boggled her mind.   
>"Perhaps there's some distant ancestor that got taken off of Earth? Or maybe evolution favors the same behaviors no matter what planet life grows on?" Connie thought to herself as she finished up her meal. "I bet scientist on Earth would love to observe this firsthand. Perhaps they will someday."   
>Meal finished, Connie took note of the position of the sun before looking back at the slope of the mountain and sighed. "Quite a ways left to go. I hope I can get to another flatter spot before night falls. I don't think I'll make it to the top before the sun fully sets. Going to give it my best." she thought to herself as she strapped her sword back onto her back and put her bags back on, stretching out a little and putting out her fire before she turned her attention back towards the slope fully.   
>Taking another moment to size up the climb ahead of her, Connie took notice of a few spots where the slope wasn't quite as steep as the surrounding areas. Unfortunately for her, they were spaced out too far to really take advantage of them all, but she was able to plot a course that would take her towards the most spots naturally during her climb.  
>Slowly, Connie resumed her climbing, once more digging her fingertips and toes of her shoes into the rocky slope. Her muscles were straining with every reposition as she pulled herself higher up, the steeper slope and no resting spots making the climb that much more difficult on the teenage girl. Still, she pushed on, determined to get as high as she could while she could still see what she was doing.   
>As Connie kept climbing, she came across a spot where she could swear she heard a low buzzing sound emanating from within the mountain, similar to static on a television screen, mixed with the buzzing of bees. "I hope whatever's making that buzzing stays away. Last thing I need is to fight off something while climbing a mountain." she muttered to herself before she picked up the pace, hoping to leave the noisy spot behind. As she moved further away from the spot, the sound grew quieter and eventually faded from her ears entirely.  
>Sweat was starting to really drip from Connie's body as she caught sight of another spot on the mountain that flattened out. Her hands fumbled with every new handhold she tried to get now, the slickness of her sweat combined with the still damp nature of the rocks making her climb harder and more treacherous as she closed the distance between her body and the new flat spot above her. Her muscles were crying out for relief now, the world around her starting to get darker as the sun set in the distance.   
>Connie smiled as her fingertips brushed the top of the new flat area on the mountain. Grasping the ledge firmly, she pulled herself up, bits of rock falling away as more of her body was pulled onto the new plateau. When she finally pulled herself all the way up, she crawled a short distance away from the edge before she stopped an panted, catching her breath, letting her muscles rest, and wiping the sweat away from her forehead and body.  
>After catching her breath, Connie stood up and looked up at the mountain. The slope ahead was cast in shadows from the lack of light, but she could tell she had about a fourth of the way left to go before she reached the top. She couldn't make out the shining she had seen from the base of the mountain, but shrugged it off as a lack of light. Turning her attention away from the peak, Connie started walking along the plateau, eyeing the sides and looking for a spot she could set up a camp for the night.  
>Soon enough, Connie found a small cave in the side of the mountain. She couldn't see where it ended, the tunnels branched out and disappeared into the darkness. What was more concerning for her was the low rumbling sound coming from within the cave, sounding similar to the waterfall she had heard inside a cave previously, but distorted. "I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, but sleeping in the cave has to be better than sleeping out in the open darkness, even on a mountain." she thought to herself as she cautiously made her way inside, moving out of the line of sight of the entrance as much as she dared to before she settled down in a spot.   
>By the time Connie got a fire started, a meal eaten, and her sleeping area set up, the world was almost completely dark once more. Failing to stifle a yawn, Connie stretched her limbs out before putting out the fire and fumbling her way over to her bags and leaf blanket. She curled up under the patchwork blanket and yawned again as she got comfortable and drifted off to sleep.   
>The eleventh day on the alien world was finished, and her time on the planet was drawing to a close. Connie would have to do her best to get to the top of the mountain tomorrow, investigate her surroundings and whatever was shining up there, and then decide where to go from there. She'd have to stay on her guard to ensure the rest of her time went as smoothly as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three in story days left for Connie's time on the world. We're in the final chapters now.


	25. Day Twelve, part one.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of the twelfth day on the alien world. Connie finds a surprise at the top of the white mountain, and surveys the world from up high.

>The sun rose at the dawn of Connie's twelfth day on the alien world. Light trickled into the cave from the opening, dispelling the darkness around her as she slowly roused herself from her rest, letting out a light yawn as she stretched her limbs out. She sighed to herself as she folded the leaf blanket up and set it aside. "This is it, today I reach the top of this mountain." she whispered out loud before she started her morning routine.  
>Once Connie had her morning breakfast heated up and consumed, and the fire she had lit put out, she gathered her bags, secured her sword, and hurried herself out of the cave. She smiled as she felt the light of the alien world touch her more directly, taking a deep breath as she scanned the horizon.The tree tops of the forest below her blended together more from the height she was at. Other than the spot where the large dragon like creature had been sleeping and the few spots of golden leaves on the tops of the green trees of the jungle, the tops before her blended together into a sea of purple and pink.   
>Connie hummed as she turned her attention away from the jungle below, focusing on the mountain peak she was climbing towards. In the light of the day, she could make out the shining at the top once more, could see where the top of the mountain leveled out into a flat plateau.  
>"In the light, the distance looks shorter than it did last night." Connie mused to herself. "I should be able to hit the peak, look around, and get down to another flat spot before stopping for lunch." Grinning, full of excitement and determination, Connie walked up to the nearest climbable part of the mountain and began hoisting herself up.  
>From handhold to handhold, Connie made her way up the slope of the mountain, her smile growing as the distance between herself and the peak shrunk, the gleaming near the top of the mountain sparking her curiosity more as she closed the distance between herself and the peak. She started moving faster the closer she got to the top, the desire to satisfy her curiosity and to see more of the alien world from the peak running through her mind as she pushed herself to climb faster.   
>When she hit the top of the mountain, Connie paused for a moment to catch her breath, her muscles slightly sore and achy from where she had pushed herself to go faster than she should have. After a moment though, her aching faded, allowing her to stand up on the peak properly to get a good look.   
>In the middle of the peak, Connie noticed a long metal pole was forcefully thrust into the ground. "That must have been the source of the shining, but who...." Her thought was interrupted as her eyes caught sight of a small box at the base of the pole, chained up and attached firmly with a lock, a separate chain holding a key pinned by the pole itself.  
>A thought immediately came to her mind. "Pearl must have put this here for me to find. She knew I'd be drawn to the mountain tops if I wanted to survey the land. She must have figured I'd see the metal glinting in the sun." Connie made her way to the pole, grabbed the chained key, and undid the lock fastening the box to the pole. She turned the small box in her hands for a moment before sighing and speaking aloud. "But what's inside? She wanted me to find this, but it's too small to be the limb enhancers I was looking for. Do I want to open it? It could be more supplies she put here for me......but she knows I'd hate that."  
>Connie mulled it over in her mind for a moment before making her choice. "There's no harm in looking inside, she put this here for a reason. If it's supplies, I can toss them or leave them here." Slowly, Connie opened the box, her anticipation to see what's inside growing as the lid slowly creaked open.  
>Connie let out a gasp as she saw was was within the box. A thin rectangular device sat within, standing up on edge, surrounded by a soft material. Slowly, Connie pulled the device out of the box and looked it over. "A dataplate? Why would Pearl put this up here?"  
>As if to answer the question in her mind, the dataplate in Connie's hands flickered to life, startling her and almost causing her to drop it. She soon got a hold of her nerves and held it tightly, the screen facing up to where she could see it as an image became visible to her eyes.   
>Upon the screen, an image of Pearl showed up, her face smiling widely before she spoke cheerfully. "Hello Connie! If you're seeing this recording, it means you found the datapad I left on the planet, just like I knew you would! This datapad is programmed to start up when someone touches it, and it'll display a vague map of your surroundings. It will also show you the shortest path between your current point and the limb enhancers I hid on the planet. Whether you use this pad to find them or just focus on surviving the remainder of the two weeks, I leave up to you. Good luck Connie, I'm proud of how well you've already done!"  
>Connie couldn't help smile as the recording finished up and the display shifted. Just like the recording had said, the datapad now displayed a generalized map, showing the entirety of the peak she was standing on, surrounded by nothingness. A ways off from her position, she saw a secondary dot on the map, the datapad emitting a light beep in time with the dots blipping on and off the screen.   
>Much to Connie's confusion, the dot in the air was moving around, shifting slightly in the area it was sitting in. "If that dot represents the limb enhancers, why are they moving around? Did Pearl attach them to a robot? Or.....did something else get to them already? But why would it stay in one area if something did get to them first?" Connie ran through the possibilities in her mind before she shook her head and spoke aloud. "Well, whatever it is, I'll figure it out later. I'm not sure I want to go after them anyways, but it'd be a waste to leave the dataplate and box up here."   
>With that thought in mind, Connie placed the dataplate in her brown bag she had brought with her to the planet, while she shoved the metal box into her leaf bag for safe keeping. The objects she found secured, Connie was finally free to survey the world from the peak of the mountain.  
>While the side of the mountain she had climbed had been bordered by a thick jungle, and the left and right sides of the mountain were connected to other mountains that ran into the yellow ocean on her left and off past her field of vision towards the right, the side opposite of the jungle was a vast expanse of flat lands. Other than the yellow ocean that continued to the left of the land, the land was a vast expanse of orange as far as she could see. The orange land below her was only broken up by thin lines of yellow, which Connie assumed were rivers and streams feeding into the ocean, and strange spots of grey.   
>Something about the grey spots made Connie feel uneasy. The rest of the planet seemed so vibrant and full of color to her, the spots were a direct contrast to the rest of the world. "I wonder if those spots were always like that.....or if something created them. I'll have to be careful down there once I arrive down there."  
>With that thought in mind, Connie made her way past the metal pole stuck in the mountain top and over to the edge of the peak's plateau. She looked down the mountainside briefly from the top, running her eyes over the sides. "At least the slope looks comparable to what I just climbed. Looks like the mountain plateaus out around the same spots too, I should be able to get down three fourths to the second plateau before nightfall."  
>Connie hummed to herself as she started to climb down the mountain towards the vast expanse of orange flatland. Going down the mountain was a lot less stressful on her body, but she was still careful not to go too fast. Any fall at all could be disastrous from the height she was at after all, there was no reason to get careless now, not when she had survived eleven days already.   
>Slowly, Connie made her way down to the first flat area from the peak. She let out a sigh of relief as her feet touched a more solid surface once more. Her stomach was rumbling with hunger already. With a smile, she started to set up her usual method of reheating food. It was time for her to refuel before going down the rest of the mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so real life troubles delayed this chapter more than I had hoped. Still, it's out now, and if everything goes well, I'll be posting the rest of day twelve tomorrow.


	26. Day Twelve, part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion to the twelfth day on the alien world.

>Connie hummed to herself as she built a fire on the mountainside to reheat her food. A light gust of wind started blowing around her shortly after she got the fire lit, chilling her body slightly even through her jacket and clothing, making her shiver a little and prompting her to sit a little closer to the fire than she usually did. As the meat she skewered with the sharpened stick heated back up, her mouth began to water, the smell of the meat wafting around her more than usual due to the breeze that had picked up on the mountainside.  
>As the meat finished heating up, and Connie started to savor her meal, she noticed a beeping coming from her brown bag. Using one hand to dig through her bag as she kept eating, she rummaged around until she felt the edges of the datapad she had picked up on the mountain top. She put the pad in her lap with her free hand and ran her finger along the screen, bringing the display back up.  
>A chill went through Connie's body as she noticed, the display on the screen was more detailed than it had been before. More importantly, one of the two dots on the screen was moving around, much faster and much more erratically than it had been before. She tapped the screen a few times in annoyance before whispering out between mouthfuls of food. "This can't be right.....if that other dot is the limb enhancers hidden away, it shouldn't be moving like that, even if they're getting swept away by a current or some animal found them.......what's going on here?"  
>Looking for answers as she kept consuming her meal, Connie stood up, datapad in hand, and moved towards the edge of the plateau, her eyes scanning down towards the vast orange expanse of flatland, towards where the screen showed her the dot was moving around. No matter how hard she strained her eyes though, she couldn't see anything moving around, nor could she see any river that matched the path the dot was moving in.  
>Connie let out a sigh before she stuffed the datapad back into her back and she started chewing on the last bits of reheated meat. "Datapad must be broken, maybe the rain seeped through the box and messed with it." Connie mused to herself. "I'll figure it out when I get off the mountain. Maybe I can fix it." With that, she started breaking down her little campsite she had set up for lunch, putting out the fire, salvaging as much of the wood as she could, and refastening her bags and sword back on her back.   
>Once she had her things gathered up, Connie returned to the edge of the plateau she was standing on, eyeing the mountain slope more intently now, plotting out the best path to climb down in her mind before smiling to herself. "At least the climb down will be easy enough from this plateau to the next one. Maybe I can get to the base of the mountain tonight after all."   
>That positive thought in mind, Connie began to carefully climb down the next section of the mountain on the path she had charted out in her mind. There were a few larger rocks lodged into this side of the mountain, rocks Connie was hoping she could use to rest a bit as she climbed down, and re-evaluate her path if the need arose.   
>Connie's muscles strained as she kept climbing downward, the beeping from the datapad chiming away as she made her descent. As she moved lower on the mountain, she noticed the beeps were starting to get more frequent, but she did her best to ignore it. The pad was busted after all, right? Surely the quicker beeps didn't mean anything.  
>As Connie's feet landed on the first of the larger rocks she had planned to stop on during her climb, she heard a strange shrieking in the distance. Her blood ran cold and her body shuddered as she realized the shrieking came from behind her. She turned herself around on the rock, and started scanning the orange flatlands below her at the base of the mountain once more, and once more not seeing anything that stood out on the plains. .   
>A second, louder shriek and the sound of the beeping from the datapad picking up in pace once more made Connie snap her gaze up towards the sky. Her eyes scanned the orange alien sky for a moment, before her eyes locked onto something. Off in the distance, she could barely make out a red blur of movement in the skies, darting around in the sky, and growing larger.   
>A moment of clarity hit Connie as she recalled something she had seen on the alien planet before. something she had seen three days before. "Is......is that the large dragon alien I saw?!" she spoke out in surprise. "It.....looks like it's coming right for me. But why would it...." A chill went through Connie's body as she realized. "The wind. The wind carried the scent of the meat I heated up! That thing's coming because it smelled food!"  
>Connie's eyes darted from the dot in the distance, rapidly growing larger and becoming more defined, to the next area of flatter mountain terrain, then back up to the form. She could hear it screeching once more. "Stars, I've got to get to the next plateau of the mountainside fast, and find a cave to hide in, or I'm doomed."   
>Connie cursed aloud before she started moving off the rock and climbing down the mountainside once more. Her normally cautious climbing method was now replaced with frantic scrambling, rocks tumbling down as her feet and hands dug into the mountainside, her muscles aching from the speed she was moving. Meanwhile, the beeps from the datapad were steadily growing faster and louder, the screeches the creature was emitting were becoming louder in her ear, accompanied by a growing sound of flapping wings.  
>As the sound of screeching and wingflaps grew louder in time with the frequency and sound increases of the datapad beeps, Connie's pace of climbing down the mountain slope became faster, more frantic, and clumsier. There were times where one of her hands or one of her feet would slip off of a firm hold, causing her to lose a moment reorienting herself, the dread within her growing with every misstep, every delay. She knew every slip made it all the more likely that the alien monster flying in the skies would catch up to her while she was still exposed on the mountainside.   
>Suddenly, Connie heard a loud boom behind her, causing her to freeze in place and look over her shoulder. Her blood ran cold as she looked back, the creature was now speeding towards her in a blur of motion, its parrot-like beak opened wide and rapidly growing in size as it closed in fast. "I'm not going to make it." she thought to herself as she clenched her eyes shut and braced herself for the inevitable.  
>With one quick motion, the creature arrived at the mountainside, it's beak plunging into the rocky slope, swallowing Connie whole and taking a large chunk of the mountain with her into its mouth. Connie let out a shriek as she covered her head with her arms, trying to shield herself as her body tumbled through the creature's mouth along with a large section of rocks. While she came to a stop near the edge of the creature's throat, the rocky section of the mountain the creature had swallowed slid back further, into the monster's throat.   
>When Connie realized she had stopped tumbling, she slowly uncurled her body and stood up. The datapad in her bag was going off like crazy now, light coming off of it from within Connie's bag, lighting up the interior of the creature's mouth just enough for her to see the area immediately around her. The tension started leaving Connie's body as she started thinking. "Okay.....you're in a giant alien's mouth......but you're alive. Think, what's the best way to proceed?"   
>After a few seconds, Connie whispered to herself. "First, let's get some light in here so I can see." With a sigh, Connie started rummaging around in her bag until she found the datapad. With the pad free and in the open, the light from the screen illuminated a lot more of the environment around her. "This'll have to do, I can't risk lighting a fire in here. It might agitate this thing into swallowing again. I do NOT want to go tumbling down a throat now."   
>Connie used the light from the pad to look around her. The inside of the creature's mouth was vast, large enough to fit half a house inside it with ease. Connie took notice of the creature's lack of teeth, for which she was thankful. "If this thing had teeth, I'd probably be little bits of me right now." Connie chucked to herself nervously at her dark joke. While the creature had a large tongue in its mouth, thick and green, the rest of the space within was vastly empty.   
>Connie briefly wondered how a creature this large managed to survive, about what it usually ate or how much, before a sudden realization hit her. "Wait....the datapad stopped beeping......" Her eyes widened as she turned the datapad over in her hands, to get a better view of the screen from within the creature's mouth. Her mouth hung open slightly as she saw what was displayed on it.  
>On the datapad's screen, the two dots were very close together now, a small message on the screen read. "You are now five yards away from the limb enhancers." Connie looked at the screen in disbelief for a moment before she let out a light laugh. "You.....you've gotta be kidding me. They're.....inside this....thing? Seriously? This thing has to be busted......but if it's not......"  
>Connie hesitated for only a moment before she made a choice. "I've got nothing to lose checking it out. Worse case, I find nothing and know the pad's broken." she spoke out before she started moving within the creature's mouth, moving in the direction the pad indicated the limb enhancers were meant to be in. Connie's walking lead her towards the creature's throat, which admittedly worried her a little. Still, she had to know, and as the dots on the screen drew closer together, Connie strained her eyes to look for where the limb enhancers might be in the darkness.  
>Connie smiled in excitement as she drew close enough to where the datapad was leading her to see a box sitting within the darkness. Quickly, she rushed over to it, her feet squishing around in the creature's mouth as she closed the distance between her and the box. When she got close enough to really see the box, she took in as many details as she could .The box itself was lined in a thin later of spikes at the sharper edges, a few of those spikes had lodged into the creature's throat, keeping the box held firmly in place.   
>Looking at the datapad once more, Connie's smile grew wider as she saw the words. "Congratulations, you've arrived! Claim your prize!" Connie looked over the box once more, then reached towards it to try and open it carefully and without hurting herself. "I know the enhancers will send a message to Pearl when I claim them......but I've made it twelve days and I just got swallowed by a huge alien dragon. I think I'm ready to go home now."  
>It took her a few minutes to pry the box open safely, but eventually she managed to get the lid off of it. Connie gently placed the lid aside, using the datapad to light up the interior of the box. Within, Connie saw two boot shaped pieces and two larger cone like structures, with ten small tubes sitting around them. The enhancers themselves were mostly pink, with a yellow star fixated on each one, and splashes of blue lining the stars and the edges of the enhancers.   
>Carefully, Connie pulled the pieces out of the box, taking off her shoes and placing them in her leaf bag before she slid the enhancer boots onto her feet. Next, she slipped the larger hand pieces over her hands. To her surprise, the boots and the hand pieces fit her comfortably.   
>Within the hand pieces, Connie flexed her fingers. In response to her movements, the cylinders floated out of the box and made similar flexes. Connie smiled to herself. "Seems simple enough. Now, how do I do other things with these?"  
\-------  
>From outside, the large red dragon alien was flying around, unaware of what was going on inside it, satisfied with the rocks it had swallowed from the mountainside. Suddenly, a beam of energy pierced through its neck, moving in a circular motion and completely severing its head from its body. The creatures head immediately fell from the sky, its wings ceased flapping moments after its head fell, causing its whole body to begin to fall towards the ground after, the extended wings helping slow the descent, but not stop it entirely. Shortly after the creature's body crashed into the ground, Connie came floating down from the ground, a wide smile on her face as the enhancer fingers spun around to create a helicopter blade effect. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy these." She spoke aloud, before she pondered how long it'd take Pearl to find her now that she had the enhancers on and was using them.  
\-------  
>When Pearl found Connie, she was in the middle of stuffing her face with freshly cooked alien dragon meat. Green blood was dribbling down her cheeks as she turned to look at where the gem had landed the roaming eye in the vast orange flatlands. Connie smiled at Pearl as she saw the gem approach, holding out a piece of meat. "Hey Pearl, you're just in time. Want to try a piece?"  
>Pearl grimaced as she looked over the hunk of red cooked meat she was being offered. "No....no thanks." Pearl looked over towards where the rest of the large alien body rested, the entirety of it easily dwarfing the space vessel many times over. "How.......how did you kill this? What is this thing? I didn't see anything like this when I scouted this planet! Stars, if I had known, I would have never used this planet for your adventure!"  
>Connie stared at Pearl in disbelief for a moment before she laughed. "You mean to tell me you MISSED a giant dragon species? You? Maybe they blended in with the forest too much?"  
>"Possible......it does remind me of some of the trees I saw. Oh stars, you must have been scared! But, you found the limb enhancers! Bravo Connie! I imagine you're ready to go home now?"  
>Connie nodded. "When I finish eating. I'm taking some of this home with me, mom would love to study this, or eat it. Either way's fine with me."  
>"I'll......I'll cut off a few pieces while you finish, for transportation." Pearl hesitated as she spoke, but she felt like it was the least she could do, for not catching such a dangerous species in her scans of the planet prior to the adventure. Using her spear, Pearl cut away a few larger portions of the creature, stashing them in her gem while Connie finished eating.   
>When Connie was done eating and Pearl was done stashing away samples, the pair departed the planet together. Connie's adventure was over. While it had been cut a few days short, she was still proud of herself for surviving an alien world on her own for so long, without resorting to the healing tears, and even though she had used technology to do it, she had still taken on an alien dragon and won. She couldn't wait to tell Steven and the rest of the gems the story about her time on the alien world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I wanted Connie to fight an alien dragon for a while, and I wanted it to happen on the mountain so she'd have nowhere to really run or hide. But I realized, if the story didn't end here.....there was no way to really top an encounter with a dragon in my story. So, I wrapped it up here, in a way that I hope is satisfactory. For those that read this story from start to finish, thank you for sticking it out. I hope people can enjoy this tale for what it is.


End file.
